Cheap cantalopes are plentiful. WHY?

Cantalopes/cantaloupes...are back on sale...AGAIN...at H-E-B stores...the giant Texas grocery chain.

One buck apiece! The same price as a couple of weeks ago.

This follows last week's sale... at a low $.88 each...at Randall's, a hedge-fund owned Safeway...found in some Texas cities.

Cantalopes have been on sale here in Central Texas...for a buck or even less at times...since early spring.

Even tiny Sun Harvest Markets had a brief sale on its lopes...for less than one dollar.

I follow the price of cantalopes because...I consume one per day... when they are in season and reasonably priced.

Why not? I'm watching fat consumption....trying to keep it BELOW 50 grams daily.

Cantalopes are filling...low in fat, mostly water...rich in Vitamins A and C.

But why the continuing low prices... and seemingly big surge in quantity recently?

The quality has been pretty good, too.

I actually bought a giant 5.5 pounder...for a mere buck ...at H-E-B. It was tasty, too!

The reason, apparently, for the surge in cantalopes is...Guatamala.

Most of the early crop came from that small troubled Central American country.

I don't remember the quality and supply from Guatamala... ever being so large.

A caution...many of these giant Guatamalan lopes...don't have the usual belly-button some people use to check for ripeness.

Anyway...Guatamala is showing success in cantalope agriculture.

Guatamala has even overtaken Mexico in lgrowing lopes... now accounting for 41% of US imports...followed by Costa Rica.

More here: http://timcoworldwide.com/statistics_cantaloupe.php

What happened to Mexican production...especially in this Age of NAFTA? Why has it dropped off so rapidly?

And what are the Guatamalans doing to their land and water supplies... to sustain this increase in cantalope production?