This is not a story about drugs.  It’s a story about a lesser-known cartel product. A product that many of us probably have ripening on our counters. Avocados.  Yes, the Green Gold as it’s called in Cartel Land is a multi-billion dollar industry and you may be shocked to learn what farmers are doing to protect their crops and their families in an industry that Canadians support by buying hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the little green fruit.  The average Canadian consumes 2.5 kgs (almost six pounds) of avocados a year. That’s twice as much as the average European.

Mexican avocado farmers are trapped in the middle of a war between drug cartels fighting for control of the lucrative avocado industry. Trucks carrying avocados are given heavily armed police escorts from Mexico's orchards to its processing plants to its ports. W5's Avery Haines speaks face-to-face with a commander of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel about its involvement in the avocado industry. She also speaks to an avocado farmer whose lucrative orchard in western Mexico has attracted the attention of a hyper-violent drug cartel.