Posts Tagged “Massachusetts”
Christmas is only three weeks away and produce holiday shipments have already started with some items.
The last of fresh cranberry loads are now moving to USA markets, but primarily from Central Wisconsin. While Massachusetts often promises Christmas shipments, it has a checkered history of actually delivering, primarily due to quality issues and the demand from the processing marketing.
Probably the most reliable is The Cranberry Network LLC, Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., which markets fruit grown by Tomah, WI-based Habelman Bros. Co., the nation’s largest fresh cranberry grower. It plans on packing and shipping fresh-market cranberries through mid-December.
In Texas, the Winter Garden District located just south of San Antonio is gearing up with cabbage, broccoli and onion shipments. Further south in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, there are grapefruit and orange loads available, as well as a variety of vegetables, not only from the valley, but crossing the border from Mexico.
California
California has a big clementine crop this season coming out of the San Joaquin Valley. The valley continues to ship a record setting table grape crop, which will be winding down in coming weeks.
In the desert areas of California (Imperial Valley) and Arizona (Yuma), volume is increasing on vegetables. Last winter was very mild and unlike many past winters, picks and loads were not significantly disrupted by weather factors. Odds are this won’t happen in two consecutive years, but we’ll find out in the weeks and months ahead.
Imports
Imported Spanish clementines arriving on the East Coast are expected to be 25-30 percent lower than last season.
Importers of Peruvian and Chilean onions expect good movement and good quality with winter approaching. Arrivals are taking place now with onions from Peru, while onions from Chile will start arriving anytime, a 20 percent drop is seen.
Imperial Valley vegetables – grossing about $3800 to Chicago.
Wishing you safe travels if you’re on the road this holiday. Otherwise, I trust you are able to spend Thanksgiving with those you love and cherish the most. We have so much for which to be thankful in this great country. May God’s blessing be with each and everyone of you.
Here’s a few interesting facts about Thanksgiving.
The famous pilgrim celebration at Plymouth Colony Massachusetts in 1621 is traditionally regarded as the first American Thanksgiving. However, there are actually 12 claims to where the “first” Thanksgiving took place: two in Texas, two in Florida, one in Maine, two in Virginia, and five in Massachusetts.
The first Thanksgiving in America actually occurred in 1541, when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his expedition held a thanksgiving celebration in Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas panhandle.
One of the most popular first Thanksgiving stories recalls the three-day celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. Over 200 years later, President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving, and in 1941 Congress established the fourth Thursday in November as a national holiday.
Now a Thanksgiving dinner staple, cranberries were actually used by Native Americans to treat arrow wounds and to dye clothes.
Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879), who tirelessly worked to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday, also was the first person to advocate women as teachers in public schools, the first to advocate day nurseries to assist working mothers, and the first to propose public playgrounds. She was also the author of two dozen books and hundreds of poems, including “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
Shipments of some Thanksgiving produce favorites could be light this year.
For example , in the Glades/Lake Okeechobee region of Florida the was excessive rains during plantings from mid-September to mid-October. This may significantly reduce loads of green beans for the holidays, perhaps has much as 50 percent. Also be on the look out for wind damage to some vegetable items such as green beans, due to winds from Hurricane Sandy.
Other growing regions in south Florida will likely face similar reduced shipments.
Sweet potatoes
Sweet potato sales have increased to the point where normal times of the years, sales are close to those around the holidays.
Mississippi sweet potato shipments are expected to be lighter for Thanksgiving because of weather factors.
Cranberries
In Massachusetts and Wisconsin cranberries loads may down 10 percent. These two states account for the vast majority of fresh cranberry shipments. Make sure companies paying for the freight are aware the berries are smaller than normal this season.
Are we in a decline? That is one of the big emerging questions in political debates. Now just how smart does someone need to be to know the answer to that one?
Let’s see now. We have a complete failure of the public education system with dropout rates equal to or exceeding graduation rates. Larry Oscar We have lowered our standards and test scores for employment requirements until it isn’t even worth having standards anymore. We have teachers, ministers, priests, politicians, and just about every other form of our leaders having sex with minor students and their staff.
Those employers who are hiring can’t find qualified workers, except in other countries. It is easier to do business in almost any country in the world other than the USA. The American population has turned into a bunch of government handout ridden lemmings. And the one who is supposed to lead us out of this mess says, “We’ve lost our ambition, our — our imagination, and — and — our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam and unleashed all the potential in this country. What a crock!
This bozo has no idea what he just said. For one thing Mr. B.O., the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam could not be built today because of all the EPA environmental and OSHA safety government regulations you helped create. Meanwhile B.O. continues to make it worse. Why have any ambition when you can just sit back and let the government take care of you?
And those with a creative imagination dare not invent something here. Why you might just make millions of dollars with your imaginative invention, and then you would be one of the “Evil Hated Rich.”
Now I know that B.O. has had a rough time quitting smoking, but I thought it was tobacco he was smoking. Now I see it was something else. Our government has done more harm to our society than any of the founding fathers could have possibly dreamed up.
For starters in 1995 the government had the audacity to tell Americans that home ownership is the “American Dream.” Then the government started forcing banks to loan money to subprime borrowers so they could “Live the American Dream.” How dare anyone in the government tell us as individual Americans what the American dream is! The so called “American Dream” is for us to decide on our own, not the worthless government.
For many Americans it’s owning your own business. For others it is not even owning a home, but rather living where you have no upkeep or maintenance. And just why is it that some low life politicians think they can run our lives better than we can? Babbling Barney Frank of Massachusetts is a fine example of this. Who would want to trade places with this slobbering ugly wad of fat?
Yet this clown thinks he is a genius and knows what we want better than we do. Our nation is indeed in decline, and people like him are leading us there. This may be the first time in American history that the next generation of Americans will have a harder time being successful than we did. And we have the government to thank. It is time for new leadership in this country.
We need leaders who will step up to the plate and stop blaming others for the circumstances we are in. Blaming others will not solve the problems, and solve them we must. We need true leaders who value the rich and poor alike. Our next President needs to understand that he or she is the President of ALL Americans, not just the poor, or the middle class, but the rich as well. We should celebrate the economic diversity that this nation has produced rather than trying to tear down the successful Americans who pay the vast majority of the taxes collected.
Our politicians have made “wealth envy” a national fad. Shame on us as voters for electing these cads. Let’s show some good old American Christmas spirit this season. Let’s find a rich person and buy them a drink. Tell them how much you appreciate their tax contributions and ask them to keep paying their taxes, keep working hard, and please don’t move to China.
We need more wealthy people in this country. The richer people get the more they spend. With 70 percent of our economy based on consumer spending, we need more wealthy people to buy some very expensive things. And if you know some very rich dude who is looking to unload some cash just send him my way….I could use a new TV! — Larry Oscar
Larry Oscar is a graduate from the University of Tulsa and holds a degree in electrical engineering. He is retired and lives with his wife on a lake in Oklahoma where he brews his own beer, sails, and is a member of numerous clubs and organizations.
Fall is definately settling in across the USA and autumn produce loads also are increasing.
The biggest indication the new season is gearing up is in the Northwest with shipments of apples from Washington’s Yakima and Wenachee Valleys. Last week the state’s apple volume exceeded 2,200 truckload equivalents and the amount will continue increasing in the weeks ahead. Demand for apples around the country is strong in big part due to Michigan losing most of its crop due to weather, plus significant losses in New York state.
In California, the heaviest volume for produce shipments continues with table grapes from the San Joaquin Valley, averaging about 1,600 truckloads per week. Salinas Valley lettuce is providing the next most available loads averaging about around 1,200 truckloads each week. There also are good loading opportunities with Watsonville area strawberries and with tomatoes from the Central San Joaquin Valley. The valley also is shipping stone fruit, but it is now in a seasonal decline.
In the upper mid-west, central Wisconsin about 400 truckloads of potatoes a week, but this will be increasing. In the same area, fresh cranberry shipments are small compared to potatoes, but still significant and will be increasing, particularly by the end of October as Thanksgiving shipments get underway.
In New England, there are light amounts of apples being shipped. Massachusetts cranberry shipments from the Cape Cod area also have started, and will increase in a similar fashion to those in Wisconsin.
On New York’s Long Island, about 60 truckloads of potatoes are being shipped weekly from the eastern end of the island.
Looking at North Carolina, the nation’s largest sweet potato shipper, there are about 65,000 acres of the product. Normal volume is expected. Some of the old crop is still being loaded. However, the new sweet potato crop will soon provide most of the shipments. A average amount of about 15 million cartons of sweet potatoes should be shipped from North Carolina over the next 10 or 11 months.
Washington apples – grossing about $4400 to Chicago.
Salinas Valley vegetables and berries – about $7100 to New York City.
Wisconsin potatoes – about $1000 to Chicago.
North Carolina sweet potatoes – about $1500 Atlanta.
Triple digit heat in much of the country has finally broken and fall shipments 
of fresh produce are coming. Two such items are fresh cranberries, that will be shipped from a handful of states, plus California apples that fill a niche between loadings of Chilean fruit and apples out of Washington state.
The third largest cranberry crop on record is being forecast by the USDA, amounting to 7.6 million 100-pound barrels. While Massachuetts will be down slightly from last fall, increases are seen in Wisconsin, Washington state, Oregon and New Jersey (the latter being virtually all processed fruit).
Expect Wisconsin cranberry shipments to get started around the week of September 17th, with Massachusetts starting around that same time as well. Oregon and Washington state seasonally start later.
While loadings begin in September, cranberries are still closely associated with the Thanksgiving holiday. Thus, the big volume is moved in the first half of November leading up to the holiday. With this big a crop, some loads will be moving after Thanksgiving (which is November 22nd) for the Christmas holidays.
California Apples
A lot more California apples used to be shipped than are today. This situation reminds me a bit of vegetables shipped from the Eastern Shore area of Delaware, Maryland and Viriginia. This region is sandwiched in between harvests to its south such as the Carolinas and Georgia, and to the north in shipping areas such as New Jersey and New York. If the Eastern shore veggies are too early or too late they are up against shipments from competing areas to the north and south of them. As a result of many “misses” compared to “hits” for the Eastern Shore, shippers have hurt. The result is fewer shippers and less volume than a decade or two ago.
If you are a veteran trucker who has hauled apples from California, you may remember in the mid 1990s there were around 10 million boxes of fruit being shipped for the season. Today, that number has dwindled to about 2.5 to 3 million boxes. Most of the loads originate out the Central San Joaquin Valley including San Joaquin County, Sonoma County and Santa Cruz County.
Shipments will continue through December. Leading apple varieties are fujis, galas and granny smiths.