The Arizona Department of Agriculture (ADA), citing safety concerns, has banned produce inspections in Mexico over fears that escalating drug violence could put inspector’s lives at risk. In the ongoing carnage, more than 31,000 lives have been lost in Mexico since 2006.
This past year there have been several serious incidents including the detention of a group of Arizona inspectors by Mexican police. The inspectors were told they were being held because they lacked permits to work in Mexico. Mexican Police also detained a vanload of inspectors, informing the driver he was only allowed to drive his private vehicle in Mexico, not a State of Arizona government van.
“For the safety of our inspectors, we just don’t want to go across the line,” ADA director Donald Butler said. “The name of the game is safety for our people.”
Common practice has been for two dozen or more state inspectors to commute daily into Senora, Mexico every day during the growing season to inspect fruit and vegetable quality.
“The biggest reason was violence over the border,” ADA spokeswoman Laura Oxley said of the decision not to send inspectors to check produce at warehouses in Sonora. “They drive miles south of the border into Mexico where you read stories of innocent bystanders caught in the cross-fire and it’s not worth the risk to have our people put in the danger zone.”
The decision changes a decade’s old practice that has allowed Arizona distributors to decide which country to submit produce for inspection. In other U.S. border states, inspections are carried out north of the border.
Last week the U.S. consulate in the state capital Hermosillo ordered all staff visiting the area to travel in armored vehicles, according to this Reuters report. As far back as August of 2009, the Consulate General recommended that American citizens defer non-essential travel.
why do we need to inspect? Strawberries and Lettuce for example are grown at irrigation level which unfortunately in some areas of the world means they are irrigated with sewer water and Ecoli is a painful way to die. THIS IS VERY SERIOUS.
No reason to buy Mexican produce. No good reason to cross the border.
Think about it. Arizona’s closest international neighbor is a terrifying war zone. How long before those people illegally sneaking across our border will be brought in as bona fide refugees? Watch for Obama to get that going prior to the 2012 election if his latest scheme at normalizing illegals doesn’t work out for him. This is too juicy a liberal voting bloc to pass up.
I was at Sunflower Market earlier and saw a great buy (99 cents a lb.) on cluster tomatoes, and they were labled as grown in the USA. Can’t beat that with a stick!!