WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee approved its version of the 2007 farm bill with an estimated $3 billion for specialty crop programs, nearly doubling the funding amount approved in the House. The farm bill, which is expected to reach the Senate floor in the next two weeks, also contains the House-passed compromise agreement that paves the way for country-of-origin labeling for meats, nuts, fruits and vegetables. "There are significant achievements in this bill," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), who chairs the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry Committee that marked up the 2007 farm bill on

Numerous wildfires throughout a wide area of Southern California, but primarily in various locations of northern San Diego County, were still raging out of control Oct. 23, but the hot, dry easterly Santa Ana winds that had driven the blazes finally began to shift and a cooler, more humid on-shore flow began moving into the area. When The Produce News spoke with avocado growers on Oct. 23, the fires had already damaged -- and in some instances devastated -- numerous avocado groves in various growing areas over the previous couple of days, and additional acreage was threatened as dry conditions

It is harvest time, and the best apples from across the country are heading to market. Once the apples are off the trees, the next big challenge is to find the best way to let consumers know that they are ready for purchase. The majority of consumers do not decide what they are going to buy until they are actually standing in the supermarket aisle, so it makes sense to reach consumers with information about apples when they are ready to make the decision to purchase: in the store. That is where the U.S. Apple Association's National Apple Month program started and still anchors its strongest

HOUSTON -- The Oppenheimer Group, based in Vancouver, BC, featured two major new initiatives -- one health related and one brand related -- at its booth during the 2007 PMA Fresh Summit expo, here, Oct. 12-15. On the health front, Oppenheimer is "rallying behind a campaign to reduce the risk of diabetes through the consumption of fruits and vegetables as part of a healthy lifestyle" by becoming a national sponsor of the American Diabetes Association's "I Decide to Fight Diabetes" campaign, according to an Oppenheimer press release. The other is a new brand for Houweling's hothouse products

Wilson-Batiz LLC in Nogales, AZ, and sister company Wilson-Batiz of California in San Diego came into being in 1999 as a result of the merger of the James K. Wilson Produce Co. in Nogales, AZ, with the Batiz family, which had been formerly involved in R.B. Packing and various other agricultural enterprises in Mexico. The families have now separated their operations into two entities: Wilson Produce in Nogales and Royal Flavor in San Diego. "Our partnership was good for a long time," said Alicia Bon Martin, who is a member of the Wilson family and who was one of the owners of Wilson-Batiz. But

HOUSTON -- The same error is made in virtually every supermarket, every day of the year, by almost every checker. A loose apple, tomato or onion is scanned at the wrong price. The harried checker sees a Royal Gala coming at her and because she is familiar with the price lookup number for the more popular, and less expensive, Red Delicious apple, that's what she uses while weighing the apple. Or maybe it's an organic orange that gets weighed as a conventional one. Or cluster tomatoes that get mistaken for medium round. That could all change if the latest scan technology -- the data bar --