Speaker 1: Okay, m you said you see, I ah see. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to point of origin. This week, we're discussing a
Speaker 1: well known fruit that in the last couple of decades
Speaker 1: has boomed in popularity and demand, in part due to
Speaker 1: its association as a healthy food. It's the hoss avocado,
Speaker 1: also known as green gold. And the man you just
Speaker 1: heard is Saul an Zura's Mendoza, a hass avocado farmer
Speaker 1: in the central Mexican state of Mortlos. Mendoza story and
Speaker 1: the story of many Mexican avocado farmers like him, comes
Speaker 1: to us from wet Stone Magazine six contributor and journalist
Speaker 1: Megan Fry. Megan, in addition to her work as a journalist,
Speaker 1: is also a photographer and translator, spent time in Morelos
Speaker 1: learning about and from the farming community. They're discovering what
Speaker 1: makes the hass avocados so desirable, both for consumers and producers.
Speaker 1: She also tells us about the hassas darker underbelly, it's
Speaker 1: ties to drug cartels and the environmental havoc it's rereaking
Speaker 1: on indigenous lands. Megan, can you take us to Modelos
Speaker 1: and give us a bit of history about the variety
Speaker 1: of avocado and also why it's so prevalent here in
Speaker 1: the States. Sure. Yeah, it was actually hers cultivated in California,
Speaker 1: just outside of Los Angeles by a gentleman named Rudolph
Speaker 1: Hass in nine. He was growing experimenting with growing avocado
Speaker 1: tree um and his property and he made a blend,
Speaker 1: a mix between a Mexican variety and a Guatemalan variety,
Speaker 1: and it ended up having a lot of really great qualities,
Speaker 1: which is why we see so many of them today.
Speaker 1: The patent was put on it in ve and it
Speaker 1: started to become you know, widely cultivated back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. So the Hass avocado is the most widely
Speaker 1: and um in terms of numbers as well um cultivated
Speaker 1: variety of avocado in the world. Um, because it's grown
Speaker 1: everywhere now from Mexico to Peru to Indonesia and um. Basically,
Speaker 1: what makes the Hass avocado is so attractive is the
Speaker 1: fact that it can be plucked from a tree and
Speaker 1: when it's not ripe yet, and it will ripen but
Speaker 1: over the course of three weeks to a month, so
Speaker 1: it has quite a long period that it can be
Speaker 1: sitting in a truck or sitting on a boat. UM.
Speaker 1: I say a boat because Japan is a major UM
Speaker 1: importer of avocados as well UM from Mexico, and so
Speaker 1: it has that quality where other UM more endemic and
Speaker 1: not genetically modified in any any way, not messed with
Speaker 1: in any way. Avocados UM don't have that quality of
Speaker 1: having such a thick skin. UM. You know, they could
Speaker 1: maybe be plucked from a tree and you've got three
Speaker 1: to five days, maybe a week, UM that until you
Speaker 1: have to eat it or else it goes to waste.
Speaker 1: The other issue as well is UM that some of
Speaker 1: them have such a thin skin, especially what they call
Speaker 1: the um the creole or the creole um mixed avocado UM,
Speaker 1: that they actually eat the skin it's so thin. The
Speaker 1: other varieties, while tastier, have thinner skin and therefore less
Speaker 1: shelf life. Given their reduced monetary value, most varieties of
Speaker 1: avocados are going uncultivated and largely ignored. And so this
Speaker 1: sounds basically like many monocropt plants here in the US,
Speaker 1: like the cavendish banana, or like the you know, red
Speaker 1: delicious apple. We see that these varieties are developed primarily
Speaker 1: for their ability to last a long time. On the
Speaker 1: shelves or in this case, off the vine. So it
Speaker 1: sounds like that's kind of the the same history with
Speaker 1: the hass avocado, right, Yes, absolutely, that is what makes
Speaker 1: it so attractive because there are dozens of varieties of avocado,
Speaker 1: and there are some that are crossbread that are being
Speaker 1: sold today as well. But um, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: varieties in especially the Central Mexico into southeastern Mexico that
Speaker 1: are tastier than than the hass avocado. They have a
Speaker 1: more creamy texture and they are widely used in different
Speaker 1: aspects of the cuisine. But as far as you know,
Speaker 1: getting an avocado from you know, Central Mexico up to Canada,
Speaker 1: the hass is the one that will make the trip.
Speaker 1: In Mexico, the point of origin of the avocado, in
Speaker 1: the place from where more than of the sold in
Speaker 1: the United States emanate. There are twenty varieties of avocados,
Speaker 1: but in supermarkets throughout the US we only see one type,
Speaker 1: the Hoss variety. Hass avocados are prized for their adorability
Speaker 1: and because they mature off the vine, meaning that you
Speaker 1: can pick a Hoss avocado in Mexico and eat it
Speaker 1: a month later in Canada. So subsequently, because of all
Speaker 1: of the desirable characteristics in the marketplace for this avocado,
Speaker 1: your story leads us into kind of a darker underbelly
Speaker 1: around this industry because of all of the money that's involved.
Speaker 1: So can you help us understand what some of the
Speaker 1: dynamics are behind the scenes. First, I'd like to say
Speaker 1: that about of Mexico's avocados that they export go to
Speaker 1: the United States, and that number, the number in terms
Speaker 1: of the amount of money that that export was worth
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seventeen was about three billion dollars.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about quite a lot of money for
Speaker 1: a particular crop. So what we've seen in in places
Speaker 1: in Mexico, the state that produces the largest quantity of
Speaker 1: avocados and specifically hostperiety avocados, we have seen that just
Speaker 1: as as if it were any other cash crop, it
Speaker 1: tends to attract the attention of people who you know,
Speaker 1: are corrupt or have nefarious activities going on there. There
Speaker 1: have been a lot of reports and The Guardian did
Speaker 1: a really good report on this couple of years ago
Speaker 1: about um the green gold is what they call the
Speaker 1: avocado umo verde, and they call it that metrocon because
Speaker 1: it's worth so much money that it has attracted the
Speaker 1: criminal element into its production, and there have been cases
Speaker 1: of extortion of farms um, of kidnappings and even murder
Speaker 1: um in order for people to gain control and power
Speaker 1: of those farms. There's also been a lot of deforestation
Speaker 1: um all in a lot of different parts of Mexico
Speaker 1: in order to um to plant avocado trees, specifically hot
Speaker 1: avocado trees, because they have so much more value, at
Speaker 1: least to the people who's interested is in that monetary
Speaker 1: value than the pine trees or other um species of
Speaker 1: flora that may inhabit those mountains, the mountainous regions where
Speaker 1: they grow so well, getting into the darker side of
Speaker 1: the avocado trade and um. The government and the Mexican
Speaker 1: government has had a role in that in that they
Speaker 1: support you know, this monoculture of the hassa avocado by
Speaker 1: coming to places such as they did in Morelos and
Speaker 1: Michua kahn Um. Again the hassa avocado was created in California,
Speaker 1: but coming and saying okay, this is going to be
Speaker 1: your crop. And one could argue that that has good
Speaker 1: intentions behind it. I mean, these are you know, people
Speaker 1: who are living in the countryside, who are often quite
Speaker 1: removed from different types of services, education, um, different types
Speaker 1: of jobs. You know. So this is certainly you know,
Speaker 1: in in regions such as Morelos, where they've been growing
Speaker 1: figs and peaches and other crops apples, for example, Um,
Speaker 1: the avocado, specifically the hassa avocado, does you know, net
Speaker 1: them a lot more money than they would um working
Speaker 1: their land and selling peaches in the local market. This
Speaker 1: green gold rush feels like something that's a lot more contemporary.
Speaker 1: Was there a tipping point in which maybe in consumer
Speaker 1: behavior or the export market or pricing that that really
Speaker 1: changed things with the hassa avocado. I've been told by
Speaker 1: professor at UNAM down in Mexico City that not to
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with it. Um that opening
Speaker 1: of you know, the borders in the sense of for trade.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the mid nineties. Yeah, so there's
Speaker 1: the opening of the door, will say, with NAFTA, And
Speaker 1: and then there's this consumer you know, supply and demand.
Speaker 1: Obviously there's there's a lot of people who are traditionally
Speaker 1: you know, maybe people who have Mexican heritage who are
Speaker 1: accustomed to avocados you know, being part of their their
Speaker 1: traditional foods. So they started to be you know, more
Speaker 1: available in in different parts of the United States and
Speaker 1: then throughout the world. So, um, you go to Japan
Speaker 1: today and you find avocado in the maki roles, and
Speaker 1: that was not always the case. So we're talking mostly
Speaker 1: about the avocado fever as they call it in Morelos
Speaker 1: starting around two thousand three, and that's when the government
Speaker 1: came and said, Okay, this is what you're going to
Speaker 1: be growing, and we're willing to buy back some of
Speaker 1: the land that was granted two indigenous communities following the
Speaker 1: Mexican Revolution and its subsequent agrarian reform, So that now
Speaker 1: we're talking about the twenties and the thirties, but specifically
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, and so there's actually a process of
Speaker 1: buying back of that land, of the communal land. When
Speaker 1: the trade agreement between Mexico, the US, and Canada opened,
Speaker 1: a heightened demand for the hass avocado ensued. The Mexican
Speaker 1: government began encroaching into the agricultural sector and making deals
Speaker 1: with farmers that granted them fixed rates in exchange for
Speaker 1: planting avocados. Slowly, more farmers began converting into avocado farms.
Speaker 1: It is really interesting that the patent came around the
Speaker 1: same time as the Mexican Congress passed the bills to
Speaker 1: be able to buy back some of that land. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the Mexican Revolution, which lasts approximately ten
Speaker 1: years nineteen ninety UM. A big focus so that was
Speaker 1: peasant rights. People had been working on major Acienda's major
Speaker 1: estates and plantations that were primarily owned by whether you want,
Speaker 1: whether they were colonizers originally or families of colonizers or settlers.
Speaker 1: So the idea was to give the land back to
Speaker 1: the people, and that did happen. But Mexico is, um
Speaker 1: like we all, like most of us, are a capitalist society.
Speaker 1: So the money spoke a little bit more than the
Speaker 1: land in in certain places. So for them, it has
Speaker 1: allowed them to have a lot more of finances, and
Speaker 1: some of them don't. I mean, there are these communal
Speaker 1: lands and then there's people who have property right behind
Speaker 1: their houses and they you know, have their avocados there.
Speaker 1: They consider themselves avocado farmers. Whether they you know, whatever
Speaker 1: is going to sell and whatever they can use, that
Speaker 1: is what they will cultivate. They learn quite quickly how
Speaker 1: to work with it. And actually I was told by
Speaker 1: some people in Quijotengo that in other communities, like the
Speaker 1: community leaders have sent some of the farmers two to
Speaker 1: study avocado um how to mix essentially, how to make
Speaker 1: a hybrid avocado, and and they're working on that too,
Speaker 1: you know, create different varieties um like such as the
Speaker 1: Mendez and the Humenez. So it's it's work these people
Speaker 1: are working and with the development of these other cross
Speaker 1: breeds of avocado be done as a way to compete
Speaker 1: with the has so has avocados they can pollinate themselves,
Speaker 1: but it works much better and creates a much stronger
Speaker 1: crop if they are cross pollinated with other varieties of avocados.
Speaker 1: So the idea they they you'll find in most places
Speaker 1: where they um have where it's an avocado zone as
Speaker 1: they would call it, they have a lot of hass
Speaker 1: avocados because that's what makes money, but they'll also have
Speaker 1: these different varieties of of avocados because it makes for
Speaker 1: stronger crop. And so I think that the idea behind
Speaker 1: that of creating these like cross hybrid you know, in
Speaker 1: that region is they're looking for something that will be
Speaker 1: comparable to the hass avocado, but will also benefit all
Speaker 1: of the avocado trees just in case there's a plague,
Speaker 1: just in case there's you know, different types of fungus
Speaker 1: hassa avocados are the tree itself is much more susceptible
Speaker 1: to um plagues and UM, when I say that, I'm
Speaker 1: speaking mostly of like insects. So what they do in
Speaker 1: a lot of places is actually use the trunk of
Speaker 1: a different type of pandemic avocado, which is stronger and
Speaker 1: more resistant to whatever nature may bring its way, whether
Speaker 1: it's a drought or UM cold or um some kind
Speaker 1: of epidemic, and then they will use that as a
Speaker 1: root stock to grow a hass avocado tree out of that.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you about some of the
Speaker 1: other players behind the scenes in this story, um, And
Speaker 1: one of the shadow elements that you alluded to earlier
Speaker 1: has to do with the narco. So at what point
Speaker 1: did the the kidnappings and the extortion and the you know,
Speaker 1: claiming of property begin? And UM, who has that conflict
Speaker 1: been between Yeah, that that conflict has mostly been UM
Speaker 1: affecting the state of Michoacan. The state of Michuacan has
Speaker 1: really just absolutely ideal conditions for avocados. It does not
Speaker 1: get too cold as it does in certain places more
Speaker 1: around Mexico City because of elevation, UM it has really
Speaker 1: fertile soil. There's a lot of dormant volcanoes there. So
Speaker 1: the people who have been you know, who have these
Speaker 1: territories and you know, communal land or specifically even communities themselves.
Speaker 1: Along with heroin, which is you know, a major cash
Speaker 1: crop um where poppies excuse me, you know um which
Speaker 1: become which are used for heroin. The avocado is also
Speaker 1: worth a lot of money. So it has affected a
Speaker 1: lot of people by having organized crime come into their
Speaker 1: communities and take over their farms, their avocado farms. So
Speaker 1: they are basically they're taking the money and the livelihood
Speaker 1: of the people and kind of forcing their kind of
Speaker 1: keeping them in some ways hostage on their land so
Speaker 1: that they're working at but they are there and they're
Speaker 1: the ones that are making the profit on it, and
Speaker 1: they've done so in in violent, in violent ways in
Speaker 1: many cases, UM to the point where there's actually vigilante
Speaker 1: groups who um protect their own crops and they're armed.
Speaker 1: They're armed vigilantees just trying to make sure that their
Speaker 1: cross stay in their hands and that they are actually
Speaker 1: making some money off of it. Really organized crime and cartels,
Speaker 1: and call them narcos because it typically deal with UM,
Speaker 1: you know, illicit substances. They are involved in all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. UM. They're involved in human trafficking, They're involved
Speaker 1: in UM anything from even trash removal and pickup. UM.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of money in trash. So it's the
Speaker 1: way that Mexico is set up with its corruption, which
Speaker 1: has been going on for a long time, UM you know,
Speaker 1: has has given way for people to operate like this.
Speaker 1: Going back to the drug war in Mexico, this is
Speaker 1: like the early two thousands, around the time of the
Speaker 1: avocado boom, UM, the war on drugs in Mexico, and
Speaker 1: it has caused in some places a lot of UM
Speaker 1: violence and a lot of war. Whether we're dealing with
Speaker 1: poppies UM or or whether we're dealing with avocados. I
Speaker 1: think most people that you would talk to in Mexico
Speaker 1: would tell you that whether you're talking about the military
Speaker 1: or the police, or the government and the narcos, they're
Speaker 1: all the same and UM. A number of presidents have
Speaker 1: been accused of having ties with cartels UM, and obviously
Speaker 1: they're the ones who are who would be in charge
Speaker 1: of a war on drugs. The real battle of Mexico
Speaker 1: right now is corruption is a major major concern and
Speaker 1: it has touched the avocado in in ways that are
Speaker 1: quite interesting. Whether it's whether it's heroin or whether it's avocados.
Speaker 1: It's useful, it's brings in a lot of money, and
Speaker 1: so people want to control it. Yeah, because this is
Speaker 1: I mean in terms of a lot of money. We're
Speaker 1: talking about a two billion dollar export business just for
Speaker 1: avocados alone. Yeah, and just to do just to the
Speaker 1: United States, just the US, Yeah, at least two billion.
Speaker 1: And so for these farmers, even though historically avocado has
Speaker 1: been a part of their diet, they're presumably not eating
Speaker 1: these hass avocados because they are so valuable. Because on
Speaker 1: the one hand, there is this really valuable crop that
Speaker 1: that they're growing, but on the other hand, there are
Speaker 1: all these other factions which are hugely complicating their lives
Speaker 1: with the government, with the cartels. How are the farmers
Speaker 1: in places like Mitua con navigating making a living and
Speaker 1: also um, all of the things that they're having to
Speaker 1: struggle against as well. With the farmers that I spoke to.
Speaker 1: Some of them were flat out, no, we don't eat
Speaker 1: this product because it is so valuable. Why would we
Speaker 1: eat our most valuable products. And others are a little
Speaker 1: bit more lax about it, and they will eat them.
Speaker 1: But for them, you know, this is it's it really
Speaker 1: is how they make their money. Um, they don't grow
Speaker 1: peaches anymore. UM. You know, they've they've switched completely. So
Speaker 1: a day in the life. UM. You know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because the in in waihotel Ango, the farmers that I
Speaker 1: spoke with and then I spent time with, have told
Speaker 1: me very clearly that there UM quality of life has
Speaker 1: improved dramatically in the village. And these are in some cases,
Speaker 1: these are areas that were impacted by UM, the seven
Speaker 1: point one magnitude earthquake that hit not far from there
Speaker 1: in September of two thousand and seventeen, UM that caused
Speaker 1: a variety of UM disasters. People are actually reconstructing their
Speaker 1: homes in some of these places. They have hopes that
Speaker 1: their children will go to college. And these are things
Speaker 1: that twenty years ago before, you know, right before the
Speaker 1: avocado fever hit this particular village, it wasn't really something
Speaker 1: that people had as a realistic expectation. So there's an
Speaker 1: increase to medical care, there's an increase to being able
Speaker 1: to somebody at least that you know has a car.
Speaker 1: So that has changed a lot of things, as you
Speaker 1: can imagine, um, new roads, paved roads, um, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So as far as the daily life, I
Speaker 1: mean right now there are some people who are repairing
Speaker 1: their homes and other members of the family are, you know,
Speaker 1: working with the crops. If it's a good year, there's
Speaker 1: not a lot that you have to do with the
Speaker 1: crops at all, you know. And by good year, I
Speaker 1: mean if there's enough rain and and that isn't a
Speaker 1: concern in in a lot of places in the world,
Speaker 1: and especially it really is in Mexico and Central Mexico. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think people have a quiet pace of life
Speaker 1: in in in these communities. Yes, okay. In fact, I
Speaker 1: remember that the house also used to be worth the
Speaker 1: same as the fourth day eight pasos when it began,
Speaker 1: and then they gave it more value when they started
Speaker 1: exporting it. I remember when we were behind in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. But yes, I have seen the improvement. O.
Speaker 1: We see still some of these places are quite remote, UM,
Speaker 1: or at least were remote until they started to put
Speaker 1: in more highways, you know. And and this is something
Speaker 1: that happened in basically between the seventies UM up until
Speaker 1: more recently in the early two thousand's. You know, these
Speaker 1: were communities that um you know, in order to get
Speaker 1: something to market, they would have to travel for days,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of days. New Mexico operates at
Speaker 1: least informal economy. What what happens a lot is that
Speaker 1: people will come from different places. So the city of Puebla,
Speaker 1: the city of Cornavaca, the city of Mexico city UM
Speaker 1: into this these particular parts of um Morelos and I'm
Speaker 1: sure the same as in Metro kan and and Guerrero
Speaker 1: and and others. Dates that our avocado producers they come
Speaker 1: from the city and they offer a price and UM
Speaker 1: and then they take that back into to market. And
Speaker 1: you know, I asked about that, and you know, they
Speaker 1: said the farmers. You know, I'm like, do you feel
Speaker 1: like you're getting a fair shake? And they said that,
Speaker 1: you know, essentially yes, because they're selling their avocados for
Speaker 1: more than they were ever worth in the past. And
Speaker 1: it's three hours to get into Mexico City, you know,
Speaker 1: from there, and that's gas money, you know, and that's time.
Speaker 1: So they end up selling them, you know, to a
Speaker 1: third party that comes by and either takes them to
Speaker 1: um ah an export business like a packing um facility
Speaker 1: which is nearby. Actually, you mentioned earlier that some farmers
Speaker 1: are beginning to cross breed new varieties. Is there a
Speaker 1: desire to want to return to some native varieties of avocado,
Speaker 1: both for preservation of culture but also preservation of those
Speaker 1: varieties and not least of which, preservation of land and environment.
Speaker 1: As I know, a lot of land is um being
Speaker 1: deforcedd to to plant avocado trees. So is there a
Speaker 1: return to or promotion of indigenous varieties. I think from
Speaker 1: the farmers themselves you would get different answers. Definitely, there's
Speaker 1: a respect for the avocados that they have grown up with,
Speaker 1: that their family has, you know, specific recipes for that
Speaker 1: they know taste better than the hosta does. There is
Speaker 1: a major concern regarding um climate change. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of forest fires in Mexico this year which really
Speaker 1: impacted the presence of pollinators with the smoke. Mexico City
Speaker 1: had a you know, a climate and a climate emergency
Speaker 1: because of it. So there's definitely the desire to keep
Speaker 1: those avocados because they are beneficial two all crops, I mean,
Speaker 1: having the biodiversity, having that, having that diversity and not
Speaker 1: just a monoculture is really beneficial. I I think probably
Speaker 1: what you would see what I see more of um
Speaker 1: as Mexico City and Wahaca another city to mention, become
Speaker 1: more popular with international tourists and as the Mexican middle
Speaker 1: class and upper class kind of lower upper class I
Speaker 1: should say, kind of expand there's a desire to get
Speaker 1: in touch with that. And you'll find, you know, if
Speaker 1: you go to, yeah, a restaurant in in Wahaca or
Speaker 1: Mexico City that kind of prides itself on being like
Speaker 1: ancestral cuisine. You're not going to see hot sa avocados,
Speaker 1: no way. And maybe they're in there somewhere, you know,
Speaker 1: but they that's not going to be on the menu.
Speaker 1: So there's definitely an interest in the preservation. Whether that
Speaker 1: will extend outside of Mexico for you know, again talking
Speaker 1: about like transportation, you know, logistics and that reality behind
Speaker 1: that that's yet to be seen. I think but a
Speaker 1: lot of things that can be grown in Mexico can
Speaker 1: also be grown in parts of the United States. Um
Speaker 1: so it would be really interesting, you know, to see
Speaker 1: if that, if if that interest in different types of
Speaker 1: varieties of avocados extend into the United States. It's possible,
Speaker 1: but it's it's not that common, you know. We have
Speaker 1: to remember Mexico is a very diverse country in terms
Speaker 1: of rural versus urban and in terms of the different
Speaker 1: groups of people who live there and and have called
Speaker 1: at home for millennia. Species the Persa genus has several species.
Speaker 1: All the species are American and in fact fundamentally Mesoamerican.
Speaker 1: The avocado boom means eleven billion pounds are consumed annually worldwide.
Speaker 1: The fact that so much money is involved in the
Speaker 1: exportation of avocados has led to a number of documented
Speaker 1: perils in Mexican society. Among them, drug traffickers have taken
Speaker 1: over avocado farms, extorted farmers, kidnapping and in some cases
Speaker 1: even murdering them. Forest in Mexico have been upended to
Speaker 1: plant avocado trees, and a disproportionately large demand for avocados
Speaker 1: is creating a climate change effect. Forest lands with diverse
Speaker 1: wildlife have been destroyed to produce avocados, and many more
Speaker 1: were intentionally burned to buy pass of Mexican law allowing
Speaker 1: producers to change the land use permit to commercial agriculture
Speaker 1: instead of forest land if it were lost to burning.
Speaker 1: This is all a lot to absorb. I mean, we
Speaker 1: love avocados, but learning about the history and the contemporary
Speaker 1: challenges can be a little bit disorienting. Our diets demand
Speaker 1: for those who are able, that we make choices that
Speaker 1: center not only our desires but also our obligations. Are
Speaker 1: there avocados near you can weakly indulgences become quarterly or
Speaker 1: even annual ones, or for that matter, is a daily indulgence,
Speaker 1: even an indulgence at all. Increasingly it is evident that
Speaker 1: our governments cannot be trusted to protect the best interests
Speaker 1: of anything other than the highest bid. Climate, labor and
Speaker 1: cleptocracy are unhappily coexisting, and like many areas of our life,
Speaker 1: of individuals will have to occupy the space of government.
Speaker 1: Provenance must be part of our politics, and sometimes so
Speaker 1: to restraint. I'd like to thank our guest today, Megan
Speaker 1: Fry Alfredo Gutierrez Martinez, lev Orlando Hard Doom, Barboria Salo
Speaker 1: Azores Mendoza and the entire community of farmers and Morelos.
Speaker 1: You can read Megan Fry's story and volume six of
Speaker 1: wet Stone, or learn more on Instagram at wet Stone Magazine.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week. We'd also like to thank
Speaker 1: our incredible podcast producer Selene Glazier. Selene, you are the best.
Speaker 1: To our editor and wet Stone partner and director of
Speaker 1: video David Alexander in London, appreciate you, Dave. Thanks to
Speaker 1: our wet Stone production intern Quentin le Beau, and last
Speaker 1: but not least, my business partner Mel she who makes
Speaker 1: all things at Whetstone possible. Thank you Mel. We'd also
Speaker 1: like to thank our partners and production at I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio to Gabrielle Collins, our supervising producer and executive producer
Speaker 1: Christopher Haciotis. We'll be back next week with more from
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