Limes in the news and in your drink

Why are food prices rising so rapidly? I’ve been trying to understand how the economy works (a hopeless effort). Every time I read the news, I find new causes for inflationary food prices. Here’s an unexpected reason why the price of limes, specifically, has been rapidly increasing — lime-growers in in the Mexican state of Michoacán are being victimized and put out of business by organized criminal enterprises. These cartels are either stealing the crops or demanding money from farmers. The net result: a substantial decrease in the quantity of limes available for export, and thus price increases in the US. The cartels' disruption and victimization of the lime industry has been going on for several years, and is getting worse, causing new price increases this winter.

According to an article in the Guardian, these criminal cartels have forced many farmers to give up cultivating limes. The article quotes Romain Le Cour, security and violence reduction program officer at the think tank México Evalúa: “If you go to the taquería they tell you there is no lime, or there is one small lime for 10 people. It’s almost a joke.”

“The cartels … are imposing increasing controls over producers during the bumper crop season – in part to fund an escalating war in the western state of Michoacán where the aggressive expansion of the Jalisco New Generation cartel (JNGC) has unleashed a bitter conflict with a coalition of local groups known as the United Cartels.

“The lime trade is a billion-dollar industry and, for any criminal group, it’s very easy and extremely profitable for them to go to the farmers and tell them what they need to pay for protection,” said Le Cour. “It’s classic mafia.” 

Michoacán farmers also grow avocados — so the same criminal enterprises are also contributing to the increased cost and problematic supplies of avocados. Due to threats about the safety of avocados from the area, the US government has suspended imports of the product while investigating their safety.

In general, Mexican produce is an essential part of what's available in US supermarkets, especially in winter. For example, 93% of Hass avocados, 71% of the tomatoes, and over 95% of the limes sold in the US are from Mexico. So any problem with Mexican agriculture spells trouble in supermarkets and restaurants here. Obviously, the more expected causes of price increases and shortages also apply to Mexican produce – labor costs, transportation costs, energy costs, the impact of covid, etc.

Sources: 

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/12/mexico-lime-prices-shortages-cartels
• https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/mexican-drug-cartels-caused-rapid-increase-lime-prices-putting-squeeze-bars-cinco-de-mayo-rp
• https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-says-u-suspends-avocado-005115592.html

What can you do with limes?

You probably have a few favorite ways to use limes. In restaurants and in recipe books you often see a lime slice or wedge served with a variety of Mexican foods like tacos. The lime is a major ingredient in many cocktails — above all in the classic margarita made with tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice, with salt on the rim. At old-fashioned soda fountains, limeade, made from lime juice and plain soda-water, was a classic choice for a hot-weather drink. Limes are a nice alternative to lemon when garnishing or flavoring various fish dishes as well. Most limes sold in supermarkets are of the variety called Persian limes, but a smaller variety, called key limes, is famous as an ingredient in the originally-Floridian key lime pie.

Margaritas are fine, but if you are interested in a wider variety of cocktails, you should check over at the blog Kitchen Riffs, where John the blogger has been publishing an incredible array of recipes for over a decade, and illustrating them with dramatic photos. He has given recipes for dozens of drinks that include lime juice or a lime garnish. 

Here’s an intriguing example of one of John's recipes – the Last Word cocktail, which he  documented in 2012:

Photo from Kitchen Riffs blog.

The ingredients of this somewhat obscure cocktail are gin, green Chartreuse, Maraschino liqueur and freshly squeezed lime juice. Source: http://www.kitchenriffs.com/2012/09/the-last-word-cocktail.html

Blog post © 2022 mae sander.