WASHINGTON -- Thailand is set to become the first country allowed to send irradiated fruits to the United States, according to a Jan. 31 agreement signed in Bangkok between Thai and U.S. officials. Under a joint Framework Equivalency Work Plan, Thailand would be allowed to initially ship six irradiated fruits: mango, mangosteen, pineapple, rambutan, litchi and longan. Thailand is hoping the agreement paves the way for Thai producers to send other pest-free fruits, such as coconuts, to the U.S. market. In return, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said that Thailand would allow irradiated U.S

Nick Chappell didn't just stumble into fresh produce -- he made a beeline for it. Now a fruit salesman with Watsonville, CA-based California Giant, Mr. Chappell, 23, is the nephew of Cal Giant partner Bill Moncovich. But while that connection might help explain his employment, it does not explain his passion. "As a kid, I said I wanted to follow in Bill's [Moncovich] footsteps," Mr. Chappell said. "I have a passion for it -- every day is a little different." The Watsonville native did an internship for one semester at Cal Giant when he was 18, handling various duties around the office. The fit

The Greater Boston Food Bank announced that it received a record-breaking 62,266 pounds of food through Shaw's sixth annual "Spirit of Giving" food drive, a New England-wide program that benefited eight food banks, which in total collected 197,110 pounds of donated food. For the food banks, the donation marked an eleven-fold increase in the amount of food it received from last year's food drive. When asked about the astonishing success of the food drive, Rick Tremblay, communications manager for Shaw's, said in a statement, "This year we made it even easier for customers to participate in the

Dole bananas, a product of Dole Food Co. Inc. in Westlake Village, CA, will get top billing on the big screen with a starring role in Curious George, an animated film adventure coming to theaters nationwide Feb. 10. Beginning in February, Dole will host a national Curious George Dole Sweepstakes on it's web site, www.dole.com, giving consumers the chance to win a grand prize, all- expense-paid family vacation to Universal Studios Hollywood. Further supporting the promotion, more than 100 million collectible Curious George stickers (set of nine images) will appear on Dole bananas. Dole will

The Mexican government's fruit and vegetable promotional programs that have been pursued aggressively in recent years in the United States will now be pursued with similar vigor in Canada, according to Enrique Lobo, Mexico's newly appointed minister of agricultural affairs at the Embassy of Mexico in Ottawa, ON. Those programs are not new to Canada. But Mexico's new secretary of agriculture, Francisco Mayorga, "wants me to work very hard with the Canadian retailers" to expand those programs and achieve "the same thing that we have [with retailers] in the U.S.," said Mr. Lobo, who previously

"Hurricane Katrina has really thrown our growers a curve ball this year," said Wendy Brannen, executive director of the Vidalia Onion Committee in Vidalia, GA. "Labor has gone south to help the Katrina relief effort, which left us short of labor for planting this year." On Jan. 30, she said, "Some of Vidalia's major growers have expressed concerns throughout the planting season that there was a labor crunch." Grower Bo Herndon of L.G. Herndon Jr. Farms Inc. in Lyons, GA, who also sits on the board of the Vidalia Onion Committee, said that Vidalia onion planting starts around Nov. 10, and "we