Mexican Cartel Takes Over Water Supply

A Mexican Cartel Is Controlling Water in Drought-Stricken Mexico. The Sinaloa Cartel has seized water resources as its own amid punishing droughts fueled by climate change, Water has been hard to come by in northern Mexico for decades. But in recent years, the shortages have been especially dire.It was reported in The New York Times that “An extreme drought has seen taps run dry across the country, with nearly two-thirds of all municipalities facing a water shortage that is forcing people in some places to line up for hours for government water deliveries. ”The avocado boom in Mexico in 2020 has pulled parts of the country out of poverty in just a few years, but the prosperity there turns deadly as money-hungry cartels take hold of the market and one way to stop competing farmers is to control their water!

“Across the border in recent years, most of the Western half of the United States has been in drought, with conditions ranging from moderate to severe. For the region, this period is now the driest two decades in 1,200 years.”(Habib M. Avilar B. 9/3/2022)” Salt in the aquifers has all but destroyed many farms in California so the market has shifted in Mexico’s favor.

The Washington Post warned that “reservoirs have been hitting the bottom of their basins… Taps have been running dry for millions of people. People have sabotaged pipes that could divert water to other cities. Truck drivers delivering water have been kidnapped. Ranchers in rural areas have lost livestock or sold their herds prematurely because they can’t feed them. As populations continue to increase and temperatures keep rising, speeding up evaporation from the land surface, water problems will worsen without better adaptation.”

Mexican cartels have been farming on a small scale for decades, but this new breed of criminal enterprise is alarming According to the National Water Commission the prolonged drought has affected 70 percent of the country and decimated agriculture in the states of Aguascalientes, Coahuila, Durango, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas, among others.

Food production is down 40 percent, says the National Confederation of Peasants, with some 2.5 million people affected and almost two million hectares destroyed. Head of Mexico's National Cattlemen's Association, Osvaldo Chazaro Montalvo, has reported over one million head of cattle dead. Financial losses have surpassed US $1.3 billion including losses of US$710 million for corn, and US$280 million for beans. Leading members of the Group of 20 nations, France, the US and G20 president Mexico are preparing to hold a conference call at the end of August to discuss whether an emergency international meeting is required to prevent a repeat of the food price spike that triggered riots in poorer countries in 2008.