Posts Tagged “feature”
Florida avocado shippers expect to harvest smaller volumes during the latter part of their season.
Peak Florida volumes are July and August although the region continues to ship fruit through February. Late season loadings will be 10% lighter than earlier season shipments.
Overall, the deal, which typically begins in early June, is expecting to ship about 1 million bushels, lower than last year’s 1.2 million bushels
Avocado Imports
Chilean avocado shipments to the U.S. should be light again this season as they were in 2014-15 season.
It was September before any Chilean avocado imports reached the U.S. About 1.1 million pounds of Chilean avocados arrived the week of Sept. 6, with 3.3 million pounds expected the week of Oct. 4 and 4.7 million boxes the week of Oct. 18.
But even when Chilean volumes hit 4.7 million boxes, they will be dwarfed by an estimated 37 million boxes that week from Mexico. with the vast majority of it crossing into South Texas. The Chileans have developed a good domestic market for avocados and have been exported more to Europe.
Mexican volumes, primarily crossing the U.S./Mexico border at McAllen, TX, will be huge throughout the season. California is expecting a big crop in its upcoming season.
In August, Mexico shipped about twice as many avocados as it did in August 2014, with September volumes forecast to be up 50%.
By the end of 2015, a projected 2.1 billion pounds of avocados will have shipped in the U.S., 14% more than last year. And with the massive growth in Mexico, shippers can meet demand even if Chile winds up taking another largely hands-off approach to the U.S. market this season.
Mexican fruit and vegetable imports through South Texas – grossing about $2100 to Atlanta.
Adding fresh fruits and vegetables into Arkansas school meals not only lowers obesity rates but can also save hundreds of dollars per-child to prevent obesity, according to a new study.
Conducted by researchers at the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, the study was done in a state where residents report some of the nation’s highest childhood obesity rates.
The study focused on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program which was designed to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables eaten by students in the nation’s poorest elementary schools.
Obesity rates dropped from 20% to 17% in sampled low-income elementary schools, once the program began.
The study calculated that the fruit and vegetable program costs were about $50-75 per-child per-year to reduce the obesity rate by 3%, small compared to the $280 to $339 per-student per-year cost of an effort to reduce childhood obesity by 1%, according to 2011 research.
“By this measure, our results suggest that the fresh fruit and vegetable program is a very cost-effective obesity prevention tool,” Rodolfo Nayga, a researcher and division professor, said in a press release. “Moreover, prevention of childhood obesity is in addition to the other nutritional benefits that come from increased fruit and vegetable consumption.”
USDA reimburses schools that offer students free fresh produce outside of breakfast and lunch.
Fresh produce price inflation will be low again in 2015 as it resists California’s drought, the USDA’s Economic Research Service has forecast.
The agency recently reported fresh fruit prices will increase just 2.5% to 3.5% this year, and fresh vegetable prices will rise 2% to 3%.
In May, the USDA said fresh fruit prices rose 1.7% compared with April, but were down 5.7% from May 2014. Fresh vegetable prices were 0.2% lower in May compared with April but up 1% compared with a year ago, according to the USDA.
For all food items, the Consumer Price Index for food was unchanged from April to May but 1.6% above year-ago levels.
In 2014, food price inflation was close to the 20-year historical average of 2.6%, despite the effect of the drought in the Southwest and California.
While the ongoing California drought could have “large and lasting effects on fruit, vegetable, dairy and egg prices,” the USDA at this time projects overall food-at-home inflation of about 1.75% to 2.7%.
If oil prices continue to fall or remain low this year, projected decreases in production and transportation costs may be passed along at the retail level, according to the USDA.
Since the opening of the Mexican superhighway that basically connects the Pacific Ocean produce growing areas with the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, refrigerated truck traffic has gradually increased and more fruits and vegetables are crossing the border into the U.S. at Pharr/McAllen than at Nogales, AZ.
Both truck and auto traffic from central and western Mexico can reach the Pharr International Bridge and enter the U.S. five to seven hours faster than prior to the super highway being completed. lt took 15 years to construct the Mazatlan-Durango highway that has 115 bridges and 61 tunnels.
South Texans love to brag about how the new highway has allowed them to compete with Nogales and point out that within the past year more fresh produce is crossing the border at Pharr/McAllen than at Nogales. South Texas is now the number one point of entry for fresh produce entering the U.S., accounting for 60 percent of the imports. Leading the crossings are avocados followed by tomatoes.
This apparently is just the beginning as some observers are predicting in the next three to five years, produce volume from Mexico crossing the border in the Lower Rio Grande Valley will increase 40 to 45 percent. Besides saving time on shipments originating in Mexico, substantial savings on diesel fuel is cited for shipments destined from markets in the eastern half of the United States.
To accommodate the increasing traffic at the Pharr/McAllen border crossing, new warehousing is being constructed, as well as an expedited lane to the estimated 2,200 trucks crossing the border daily. Truckers pay a toll at the point of entry amounting to up to $23, depending upon the number of axles. Within a few years, truck traffic is predicted to hit 3,000 per day.
Mexican fruits and vegetables crossing the border into South Texas – grossing about $2400 to Chicago; $3800 to New York City.
California broccoli shipments continue to struggle with volume and quality, while raspberry loadings have improved. Meanwhile, record walnut loadings are forecast.
Just about the time it seem Salinas Valley lettuce shipments are getting straightened out from unpredictable highs and lows in volume, a similar problem is now occurring with Salinas Valley broccoli shipments. Again, similar to lettuce, broccoli has been facing some quality problems such as brown bead, hollow stem and stunted growth, which are the side effects of hot weather. Some areas of the Salinas Valley have hit 110 degrees recently. While quality is expected to improve going further into September, volume could remain below normal for weeks. It’s always good to check what’s being loaded onto the truck, so the buyer (receiver) knows what is being delivered.
Salinas Valley vegetables – grossing about $6800 to New York City.
Berry Shipments
Raspberry shipments from the Salinas/Watsonville district have improved in the past week as the weather has cooled. The berries are grown under hoops and inside the hoops, and it was simply too hot. This time of the year, raspberry production is limited to the Watsonville and Salinas areas. Shipments of the fruit normally occur from May through October.
Watsonville/Salinas berries – grossing about $4500 to Dallas.
Walnut Shipments
This year’s California walnut production from the San Joaquin Valley is forecast at a record 575,000 tons despite a lack of chilling hours during winter and the California drought that continues to impact the state. The forecast is up 1 percent from 2014’s production of 570,000 tons.
According to the USDA, California walnut acreage amounted to 181,000 in 1990 and increased every year to 300,000 acres in 2015. In the past decade alone, acreage increased by 40 percent. The number of trees per acre went up significantly as well.
New season Colorado potato shipments are underway, but still light in volume, while increasing.
About 250 truck loads were shipping last week.
While we don’t a forecast yet for the 2015-16 shipping season it appears there won’t be any drastic changes in total truck shipments from this past year.
The San Luis Valley planted 52,900 acres of potatoes for the 2014-15 shipping season. With the end of July the region had shipped nearly 14 million cwt of fresh market spuds.
There were 2,561 truck loads shipped during July, compared to 2,291 in July 2014 and 1,839 in 2013. Shipments to date for the 2014-15 seaspm were 30,325 truck loads, compared to 29,344 in 2014 and 31,988 in 2013.
Organic potato acreage continues to increase, and now exceeds 4,000 acres.
Shipments of yellow potatoes also is increasing. It now accounts for 8 to 10 percent of the volume each year nationally. Russet Norkotahs continue to lead the pack in overall potato acreage in the San Luis Valley. Red potato shipments are a much smaller percentage.
Fingerlings and specialty potato shipments also are increasing from the San Luis Valley.
San Luis Valley potato shipments – grossing about $3300 to Cleveland.
Woerner Purchases Cañon Potato
Cañon Potato Co. has been acquired by Woerner Holdings Inc. and Woerner subsidiary H.C. Schmieding Produce Co. will market and distribute potatoes from Cañon’s Center, Colo., facility.
In the deal, Woerner takes on the packing and storage facility of Cañon Potato, which announced its closure in 2013. That’s when the co-owner and a sales veteran left to join a competing Colorado shipper.
Springdale, Ark.-based potato shipper H.C. Schmieding Produce was sold to West Palm Beach, Fla.-based Woerner in April.
The sweet potato harvest in the South started in August and shipments are expected to be pretty steady this season. However, it will probably be October before the old crop is finished being shipped.
In 2014 about 115,000 acres of sweet potatoes were harvested in the Southern states – primarily from North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. Total volume is expected to be slightly higher this year.
North Carolina Sweet Potato Shipments
North Carolina, which grows and ships more sweet potatoes by far than any other state, could see a boost of 2,000 planted acres this season — up to 75,000 acres. Harvest got underway the last half of August. However, the old crop is still being shipped and probably won’t be finished up until late September or early October. The new crop has to be (or at least should be for better quality) cured before shipping.
Louisiana growers could see a 20 percent increase in acreage this season. In 2014 the state had 8,800 harvested acres.
Arkansas had 4,000 harvested acres in 2014. Most of it is grown and shipped by Matthews Ridgeview Farms, Wynne, Ark.
In 2014, Alabama had 2,000 harvested acres and had started their harvest in early August.
Eastern North Carolina sweet potatoes – grossing about $2250 to Atlanta, $3000 to Boston.
Residents of California lead the nation in vegetable consumption, while neighboring Oregon is second.
Even though Oregon is second, most folks here aren’t eating enough, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 11 percent of Oregonians are eating the recommended two to three cups of vegetables a day, second only to California, where 13 percent eat enough veggies, CDC researchers report.
Nationwide, only 8.9 percent of Americans are eating two to three cups of vegetables every day as recommended.
Fruit consumption is slightly better. About 14.5 percent of Oregonians are eating the recommended 1.5 to 2 cups of fruit a day, compared with 13.1 percent of all Americans and 17.7 percent of people in California.
Fruits and vegetables are important in lowering a person’s risk of developing chronic diseases like obesity, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, said Jordana Turkel, a registered dietitian at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
For example, they contain a lot of fiber, which helps control spikes in blood glucose levels by slowing the digestive process, and the fact that they are generally low in fat helps lower cholesterol levels.
“We are seeing now what is going to happen if this trend continues,” Turkel said. “Obesity is on the rise. The rates of Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease are on the rise. I think we are seeing the effects of all of this now.”
By Larry Oscar
Just smack me down with Hillary’s e-mails! It’s presidential election time again, and this election cycle may prove to be the most entertaining in decades.
And it would be far more fun if it the world was not in such a state of chaos. For that reason alone all Americans should step back and take a hard look at what this nation has become over the last several years. We have gone from the world’s leader in individual liberty to just another nation of moochers with our hands out waiting for a government check.
But the politicians are out in force promising even more government handouts for your vote. Funny thing, if a politician was to offer you a dime for your vote it would be illegal, but they can offer you a big fat welfare check for your vote, and somehow that’s okay. It should be illegal for any politician to offer anything of monetary value for your vote. The left wing party of our nation has a distorted collection of welfare promising “vote suckers.” They range from a mad socialist from Vermont; a Muppet version of Miss Piggy; to old Gaffy Duck Joe himself.
All of them claim to be the champion of the poor, the downtrodden, and the ever shrinking middle class. And their solution to all of the ills of these “oppressed” groups is to take more money from the producers in our nation and distribute it to the non-producers. Never mind that this didn’t work out so well in the former Soviet Union, North Korea, East Germany, Cuba, Venezuela, or any other socialist nation.
Old Gaffy Duck Joe recently proclaimed that corporations should do the “patriotic” thing and gladly pay more taxes. I guess old Gaffy flunked his history class. I seem to recall the patriots were the ones who dumped the tea into Boston harbor in protest of high taxation. It is time for Americans to restore our country’s commitment to individual liberty. There is a movement taking hold in this country and that is one reason the controversial New Yorker Donald Trump has been drawing huge crowds. New Yorkers are not known for their calm cool demeanor, and “The Donald” is no exception.
The United States was a beacon of hope for liberty for the entire world at one time, and we need to reclaim that title. When immigrants came to America the first thing they saw was a statue standing tall in the New York harbor that was given to us by France. It was the Statue of Liberty. It’s not the statue of welfare handouts, or gay rights, or illegal immigration, or political correctness, or even right-to-life, but the statue of LIBERTY!
Liberty is the main founding principal that this county was built upon. It is our national belief that liberty is more important than life itself. Liberty is what we fought and died for in every war this country has ever fought. And just in case some of you don’t know. The belief in liberty is why about 500,000 mainly white men fought and died to set the black man in this country free.
A fact that those who live in Baltimore and Fergusson need to think about. When you yield your individual liberties in exchange for big government handouts, excessive government regulations, or government social laws that favor ones religious beliefs, you are carving out the path to your own destruction. Liberty costs lives. We pay the price in lives every year for our liberties. Over 30,000 lives per year to have the liberty to own and drive an automobile. Over 4,500 lives per year to keep and bear arms. And we will pay a high cost in lives to maintain and ensure that our military is ready to defend our liberties in a world where those would take it away and remove your head.
America may be at a crossroads. Those of us whose parents fought against tyranny and won will soon be gone. We have now raised a generation who have never lost their liberties. They don’t know or understand the value that individual liberty adds to their life. And the big question is will they wake up and work to restore the greatness of America that brought hope to the rest of the world? Or will they sell their liberty for the promise of a government regulated and controlled life? Will they yield to the cry of those politicians who cry out, “We are all in this together. The government is here to help and, of course, I need to be in charge?”
What this nation and the world needs right now is a Patrick Henry in the White House.
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.
Price inflation has slowed to a crawl in 2015 for retail fresh produce.
Little or no inflation this year is expected for retail fresh fruit prices, while the top end of retail fresh vegetable price inflation is just 1.5%.
The USDA’s Economic Research Service reported in late July that the agency’s updated forecast for retail price inflation for fruit is now in a range 0% to 1% for 2015, rising to 2.5% to 3.5% next year. For fresh vegetables, the USDA predicts retail prices will increase from 0.5% to 1.5% and rising 2% to 3% next year.
Retail price inflation for fresh fruits in 2014 was 4.8%, while fresh vegetable retail prices were off 1.3% compared with 2013. The 20-year average inflation rate for retail fresh fruits is 3% and 3.2% for vegetables.
Fresh produce prices will increase at a lower rate than the overall food price index. The agency predicts overall supermarket food prices will increase 1.75% to 2.75% this year, with higher inflation for beef and eggs. In 2016, the USDA predicts retail food prices will increase from 2% to 3%, in line with the 20-year average of 2.6%.
Though the California drought has not caused fresh produce inflation this year, the USDA said it could play a role in food prices next year.
“The ongoing drought in California could have large and lasting effects on fruit, vegetable, dairy, and egg prices,” the USDA said in the forecast. On the other hand, the agency said lower trending oil prices could cause lower production and transportation costs to be passed on to consumers.
The USDA said farm-level prices for growers are down compared with a year ago. The agency predicts farm level prices for vegetables will decline 4% to 5% this year, while farm-level fruit prices will sink between 5% and 6%. For 2016, the USDA predicts grower prices for fresh fruits will rise 1.5% to 2.5%, while grower prices for fresh vegetables will increase 1% to 2%.