IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v191y2025ics0305750x25000257.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Avocados: Mexico’s green gold, drug cartel violence and the U.S. opioid crisis

Author

Listed:
  • De Haro, Itzel

Abstract

The growing global demand for avocados has drawn the attention of rent-seeking drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) in Mexico. As a result, farmers and packing houses have become targets of extortion by these organizations. This paper aims to answer whether declining drug revenues have incentivized cartels to target the avocado sector. By leveraging exogenous variation from the introduction of Fentanyl in the U.S., I analyze the impact of reduced heroin demand on homicides and cartel presence in avocado and poppy-growing municipalities between 2011 and 2019. Using municipal-level data, I show that the decline in the demand for heroin increased homicide rates, including those of agricultural workers, as well as truckload thefts in avocado-growing municipalities. Conversely, decreased heroin demand resulted in a reduction in homicides and violent thefts in poppy-growing municipalities. Furthermore, I find no evidence of changes in cartel presence in avocado and poppy municipalities. Consequently, the rise in homicides in avocado municipalities can be attributed to DTOs’ increased use of violence against civilians rather than territorial expansion. Overall, this paper provides evidence of inter-sector spillovers resulting from drug demand changes.

Suggested Citation

  • De Haro, Itzel, 2025. "Avocados: Mexico’s green gold, drug cartel violence and the U.S. opioid crisis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:191:y:2025:i:c:s0305750x25000257
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.106942
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X25000257
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.106942?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crime diversification; Drug cartels; Avocado; Fentanyl; Heroin; Crime; Violence; Mexico;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • Q17 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agriculture in International Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:191:y:2025:i:c:s0305750x25000257. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.