David Karp, “Is the Lime an Endangered Species?,” The New York Times, March 29, 2014
A recent New York Times article highlighting the apparent fragility of the lime harvest has blamed a recent shortage on “weather, disease and even Mexican criminals,” warning that increased wholesale prices have only compounded the problem. According to citrus researcher David Karp, a citrus greening disease known as huanglongbing (HLB) has already infiltrated groves in Mexico, which supplies 95 percent of the limes consumed in the United States. In addition to reducing the Key lime harvest by one-third in the past three years, the presence of HLB in Colima has stoked fears that the disease will spread to Persian limes located in Veracruz and other Mexican states. In addition, as industry leaders told Karp, the current shortfall has not only induced farmers to strip their trees early “to cash in on sky-high prices,” but attracted the attention of criminal cartels that have reportedly started “plundering fruit from groves and hijacking trucks being used for export.”
“The lime hysteria we’re starting to see now may be only a taste what’s to come,” concludes Karp. “The produce wars on the ground are not limited to limes. Criminal cartels now control, to a shocking extent, the growing and packing of much of the Mexican produce on which United States consumers depend… [I]t is important to recognize that we do give up a measure of food security by importing from countries destabilized by the drug trade, corruption and unchecked crime.”
Issue 519
