Limes

Limes are believed to have originated in the Northeast India, Indochina region. Limes followed Westward trade routes to the Mediterranean then to the Americas (Plattner, 2014).

The largest producers of limes are India and Mexico. The United States is the largest importer of limes and Mexico's share of their total lime import is 97 percent. The United States imported 912 million pounds of limes from 2011-2013 with 90 percent of these imports from Mexico being Persian limes (Plattner, 2014).

Mexico grows both key and Persian limes. Key limes are favored domestically while the United States prefers Persian limes. When the United States produced their own limes, the main production area was in South Florida (Plattner, 2014).

Currently, 50 to 60 percent of Persian limes produced in Veracruz are exported to the United States. Other areas that produce most of Mexico's key limes are Colima, Michoacán, Guerrero, and Oaxaca (Plattner, 2014).

Limes are very freeze-intolerant and require long periods of heat to mature which limits production to subtropical and tropical areas. Harvesting occurs several times throughout the year in January-February, June-July, and September-October. Limes are grown in orchards and are harvested by hand when the skin is smooth and the rind turns pale green. The United States often prefers green limes for consumption although there are no differences in quality between green and fully yellow limes (Siddiq et al., 2012).

After a hurricane in 1926, the commercial key lime production in Florida was lost. The state then began planting Persian limes since they are slightly more freeze-tolerant than the key lime and require lower heat to reach maturity and size preferences. However, years of citrus canker and leafminer, and hurricanes and tropical storms prevented Florida's commercial lime production from fully recovering after 1995 (Donkersley, 2018).

The nearly complete reliance on Mexico for limes sometimes puts the United States in an unfavorable situation. Climate change leads to recurring bad weather and disease that destroy lime trees very easily. Additionally, drug cartels meddle in the supply chain and contribute to an increase in the overall costs of lime production. In the spring of 2014, the price of a case of limes increased from $15 to $100. Prices can double from the last month at any time with the unpredictable weather or lack of commitment from growers (Peterson, 2019).

Female agricultural laborers in Mexico experience gender-based violence and abuse in the male-dominated agricultural industry.

• pay disparities
• gender discrimination
• sexual harassment

There is an overall culture of violence against women in Mexico and a lack of regulatory procedures that protect the rights of workers. Although all laborers experience a plethora of abuse, females within the system face an additional burden of abuse and discrimination because of their gender (Klein, 2018).

In April 2020, citrus growers in Veracruz halted the lime harvest due to COVID-19. Packers were not exporting the citrus to the U.S. because of the spread of COVID-19 there and in Mexico. Additionally, the price of limes had dropped and transporting them was not worth the low payment. The lime industry is an essential part of the economy in this area and stopping production has a large impact on the local economy (Fresh Plaza, 2020).

The buying of export limes operates within a complex and hierarchical system. There are some distributors who own packing sheds and produce their own limes but most are picked then sold through:

• Scales, where truck lots are weighed, bartered, and sold
• Direct selling at packing houses
• Local village posts near lime orchards where limes are washed and sold to field buyers from the scales and packing houses

At each site, individual buyers bid and buy fruit from the vendors who are often middlemen who buy directly from the orchards or village posts (Alvarez, 2006).

After being picked from the orchards, limes are packed into bins and transported to packing houses where they are cleaned, graded, sized, washed, waxed, and packed into 10, 20, 40, or 55 pounds cartons (Produce Blue Book, 2020).