‘They put a price on everything’

Members of the Civil Guard escorting a truck carrying lemons in the Apatzingan-Nueva Italia highway section, Michoacan State, Mexico. In this agricultural municipality, as in many others in Mexico, criminals act as true market forces by imposing quotas on producers and intermediaries that impact the pockets of millions of consumers. — AFP

PLOTS of land lie empty among lime and banana plantations in one of Mexico’s most violent regions – abandoned by their owners due to widespread extortion squeezing Latin America’s second-largest economy.

As in many other agricultural zones around the country, criminal gangs in the western state of Michoacan have become a major market force, driving up costs and hurting not just farmers but also consumers.