In the small Mexican town of San Ángel Zurumucapio, avocado farming has brought both economic prosperity and violence, with the town now guarded by paramilitaries who extort and kidnap residents. The growth of the avocado industry has transformed the region over the past three decades, lifting families like Óscar García's out of poverty into the middle class. However, this newfound wealth has come at a cost: the town is plagued by cartel extortion and fear, with Óscar himself being forced to care for his family's farm at just 18 years old. The town's residents, including Francisco García, have seen their lives changed forever since the avocado industry took off in 1997.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-06,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
-
Click here to listen to this article -
- In a mountain hamlet, avocado farming lifted once-poor families into the middle class, but opened the door to cartel extortion, kidnapping and fear.
asserted
farming → click → extortion
Óscar García slowed his truck as he passed the checkpoint of paramilitaries who now guard his town, calling out the nicknames of several of the masked men toting semiautomatic rifles.
asserted
who → slow → rifles
They waved him through.
asserted
They → wave → him
His grandfather, Francisco, 74, who rode beside him in a straw cowboy hat, shook his head.
asserted
who → ride → head
“The avocados changed everything,” he said.
asserted
he → change → everything
The explosive growth of the avocado industry has brought enormous wealth to this stretch of western Mexico.
asserted
growth → bring → Mexico
“But it also brought terror,” Francisco said.
asserted
Francisco → bring → terror
Danger lurked in the shady groves of avocado trees that stretched on the mountainsides as far as the eye could see.
uncertain
eye → lurk → mountainsides
It had touched their town, and their family.
asserted
It → touch → town
Óscar turned off the winding highway and up a rutted dirt road lined with orchards.
asserted
Óscar → turn → orchards
He is only 18, but it is his job now to care for his family’s farm.
asserted
it → care → farm
After a few miles, he put his foot on the brake.
asserted
he → put → brake
“This,” he said quietly, “is where they found my father’s truck.”
asserted
they → say → truck
1. The main plaza of San Ángel Zurumucapio, surrounded by avocado orchards that have brought prosperity to the town.
asserted
that → surround → town
An “autodefensa,” or armed member of the town’s militia, checks a vehicle’s paperwork at one of the barricades erected to protect San Ángel Zurumucapio,.
asserted
autodefensa → check → Zurumucapio
San Ángel Zurumucapio, a hamlet of 6,000 with P’urhépecha indigenous roots, is the kind of place where everybody seems to be distant relatives, and where the social calendar revolves around the big rodeos held every few months.
asserted
calendar → seem → rodeos
As a young man, Francisco traversed it on horseback, eking out a living by draining resin from the towering pines.
asserted
Francisco → traverse → pines
Back then, it felt as though the only way a person could get ahead was by leaving.
uncertain
person → feel → ?
That’s what Francisco had done, toiling in Texas for a stint to afford a house back home large enough for his 12 children.
asserted
Francisco → ’ → children
His oldest son, known as Pancho, had done the same, heading north as a teenager to work six years on a Christmas tree farm in North Carolina.
asserted
son → know → Carolina
When Pancho returned to Mexico to build a life with his wife, Terésa Pérez, the first thing he did was clear a patch of forest and plant avocados.
asserted
he → return → forest
Among the many changes wrought by the North American Free Trade Agreement was the termination, in 1997, of the U.S. ban on the importation of Mexican avocados.
asserted
termination → work → avocados
Over the next three decades, soaring demand for the fruit transformed Michoacán state into the center of global avocado production — and catapulted a generation of people like Pancho from poverty into the middle class.
asserted
demand → soar → class
Pancho and Terésa built a home, bought new cars and took beach vacations.
asserted
Pancho → build → vacations
They dressed their three kids, Ana, Óscar and José, in good clothes and sent them to good schools.
asserted
They → dress → schools
Anyone with a little capital planted avocados and did the same.
asserted
Anyone → plant → same
The seeding of hundreds of thousands of acres of avocado trees transformed the state’s climate, with deforestation coming as climate change brings higher temperatures and less rain.
asserted
change → transform → temperatures
And it drew criminal opportunists eager to diversify beyond the drug trade.
asserted
it → draw → trade
Reynano López 46, an avocado farmer, starts his morning shift with the self-defense militia.
asserted
López → start → militia
Community police officers and “autodefensas” stand guard at the main barricade of San Ángel Zurumucapio, monitoring people leaving or entering the community.
asserted
officers → stand → community
By the mid-aughts, armed criminals in Michoacán expanded from trafficking meth, heroin and cocaine into the avocado trade, seizing control of farms, clearing forests to plant orchards and threatening violence against growers who refused to pay exorbitant “protection” fees.
asserted
who → expand → fees
In San Ángel, those men swaggered around town, smoking marijuana and blasting banda music from their flashy trucks.
asserted
men → swagger → trucks
Óscar grew up fearing them.
asserted
Óscar → grow → them
He ducked a shootout in front of the neighborhood altar to the Virgin Mary that his grandpa had helped build, and took cover while gangs exchanged bullets near his school.
asserted
gangs → duck → school
The fathers of classmates had vanished — farmers held captive until their family could pay ransom.
uncertain
family → vanish → ransom
Óscar worried about his dad, whose trees grew on a remote stretch several miles outside of town.
asserted
trees → worry → town
Pancho often took him there, teaching Óscar when to fertilize and how to identify deadly fungus.
asserted
Pancho → take → fungus
Pancho seemed unafraid.
asserted
Pancho → seem → ?
He kept to himself, spending most nights in front of the television with his family.
asserted
He → keep → family
He refused to buy a weapon for self-protection even as his brothers and many friends armed themselves.
asserted
brothers → refuse → themselves
…and 43 more, not listed.
