Mexican avocado growers have destroyed up to 52 tons of fruit over the weekend after a destructive pest was found in avocados bound for international export, in a scare for the world’s largest avocado industry.
Environmental authorities in Michoacán, the heart of Mexico’s avocado industry and its leading exporting state, confirmed on Sunday that the avocado seed weevil had been found among large volumes of fruit due to be shipped abroad. The discovery prompted authorities to detain shipments and forced producers to discard large quantities of avocados.
Local media reported that producers from the avocado-growing states of Michoacán, Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit destroyed the fruit during the weekend. Mexico’s plant health agency, SENASICA, supported the destruction. Video shared on social media showed producers emptying truckloads of avocados and dumping crates into pits to be burned and buried, as required by pest-elimination protocols.
“Producers want to prevent their crops from being plagued,” Michoacán’s environment minister, Alejandro Méndez, told Reuters in confirming the pest. He said the avocados believed to be contaminated had not been introduced to the market.
The weevil is a serious threat to orchards: it bores into the branches and trunks of avocado trees as well as into the seed within the fruit, damaging the produce. It can also spread very aggressively within an orchard and devastate crops if it is not addressed quickly.
The stakes are high. Mexico is the world’s top avocado producer and exporter, and Michoacán is the country’s leading avocado-producing state and a vital supplier to the United States market. Local authorities have not yet provided an estimate of the economic impact of the lost fruit, and it is not yet clear whether exports or inspections will face further disruption.
The 52-ton figure comes from local media reports cited by Reuters rather than from an official government estimate, so the full scale of the destruction remains unconfirmed. What is confirmed is the pest itself, the detained shipments and the official backing for destroying affected fruit — a swift response designed to stop the weevil reaching orchards or markets beyond Mexico.
Sources: Reuters, “Mexican avocado producers destroy tons of crops after pest detected”, 1 November 2026, https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/mexican-avocado-producers-destroy-tons-of-crops-after-pest-detected-2026-11-01/
