WASHINGTON -- It was a wild ride Thursday, May 222 on Capitol Hill, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture can now begin implementing the long- awaited farm bill after the Senate voted 82-13 to override President Bush's veto. While debating the more than 600-page legislation, senators discovered that President Bush had vetoed the $300 billion farm bill with a missing 34-page section on trade provisions. After some political wrangling, the senators voted to overturn the veto and agreed to return after the weeklong Memorial Day recess to resolve the mishap. Congress may decide to pass the trade

For the second year in a row, the last seasonal meeting of the New England Produce Council was held at Fenway Park, with a dinner party sponsored by Sunny Valley International Inc., which is based in Glassboro, NJ. Sunny Valley's Bonnie Lundblad coordinated the May 14 dinner, which was preceded by a walking tour of historic Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. The dinner was held in a Fenway dining room overlooking the baseball field. Ms. Lundblad, who is a sales representative for Sunny Valley, said that about 140 people attended the dinner. "There was great enthusiasm and attendance." Ms

CALGARY, AB -- While final numbers were being calculated in the days following the 83rd annual Canadian Produce Marketing Association convention and trade show, held here May 14-16, the general consensus among attendees left little doubt that the show was an overall success. Among the event's highlights was the May 15 delegates luncheon, during which the Fresh Health award, co-sponsored by The Produce News and the CPMA, was presented to the Pear Bureau Northwest by Joel Gebet, Canadian editor of The Produce News. The award recognizes an organization for supporting and promoting produce

Frank Spingola & Sons Ltd., one of Canada's larger vegetable grower-packer- shippers that is renowned for its green onions, filed an assignment in bankruptcy May 8 under Canada's Bankruptcy & Insolvency Act. According to documents provided to The Produce News by the Fruit & Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corp., Aberback Lapointe & Associates Inc. was appointed as the trustee of the estate and will hold the first meeting of creditors May 28 at 10 a.m. in Montreal at the Superintendent Office of Bankruptcy. The documents list assets of $11,453,153 (Canadian) and liabilities of $15,918,007.47

It is a tall order, but the principals at AgriWorld Exchange believe their on- line trading platform will change the way the fresh fruit and vegetable industry does business. They know this has been tried before -- and has failed fairly magnificently. But they say that times have changed and so has the industry. In the mid-1990s, a host of dot-com entrepreneurs decided that the produce industry needed to modernize its trading practices. A number of outsiders were able to lure some insiders into their vision with promises of stock options, and soon industry conventions and meetings were

Deliveries of New Zealand apple and pear varieties were already underway on both coasts in early May, and David Nelley, Oppenheimer's category director for pipfruit and pineapples, predicts a season of relatively short supply of fruit from the island nation overall compared to the past five years. "Supplies are down considerably across the industry, but Oppenheimer will have strong volumes this year with category favorites like Royal Gala and Braeburn and rising stars like Jazz already in the market," he said. "Catastrophic cold temperatures during flowering in the Hawke's Bay region were