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As 2015 comes to a close, NWA would like to wish its members, partners and other industry professionals a safe and happy holiday season. Our regular publication will resume Jan. 7.
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The Packer
The National Watermelon Association has named the first inductees to its hall of fame.
The inaugural class will have 28 members, said Bob Morrissey, executive director of the Lakeland, Florida-based association. All 28 were heavily involved in the leadership of the organization, Morrissey said.
Four — Percy Bunch, Nancy Childers, Gordon Etheridge and C.M. “Buddy” Leger — are still living.
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NWA
The United States has a rich agricultural history, with watermelon farmers serving as a shining example of the American farmer. Family farms once employed nearly half of the country’s work force, but that has changed to about 2 percent of today’s workers, with an average farmer’s age now exceeding 58. There are numerous benefits to experienced leadership in every business, especially in our storied National Watermelon Association.
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AgWeb
As Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said, “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” The process of daily or weekly planning is always challenging when conditions in the field are constantly changing. Scheduling, assigning and communicating activities is time-consuming enough, but when unexpected adjustments need to be made, the original to-do list is often left unchanged — despite the fact that it is often no longer an accurate representation of what actually happened on the farm.
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Growing Produce
USDA recently announced $17.6 million in available funding to support research and outreach activities that will help growers, producers and processors find innovative ways to improve organic agriculture. The grants are being funded through the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative, a program that is administered by USDA’s National Institutes of Food and Agriculture and authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill.
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The New York Times
The E. coli infections linked to the Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant chain are only the latest cluster of illnesses caused by contaminated food.
To be sure, the Chipotle outbreak was large. As of Dec. 2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 52 people had been infected in nine states and 20 had been hospitalized. But there was nothing unusual about such incidents.
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Forbes
Paul Martyn writes: From plummeting fuel prices to disastrous disruptions, 2015 was an action-packed year across the global supply chain. But it’s time to move on. What about 2016? In the spirit of “everybody has one,” I reached out to a number of our industry’s thought leaders, anxious for their opinions and unwilling to let them off the hook without at least one solid prediction. I deliberately stayed away from listing the popular trends and have limited the following summary to the not-so-obvious.
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ABC Online
Northern territory melon growers will monitor their own crops for cucumber green mottle mosaic virus under a new management plan which will see a quarantine lifted in February 2016. Twenty-five farms across the top end were quarantined last year to contain the spread of the plant virus affecting cucurbit crops.
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The Wall Street Journal
To the eyeshades on Wall Street, a DuPont- Dow Chemical merger is a thing of utter sensibility. Cut costs. Rationalize. End two problems with one final $60 billion flourish.
But there is a mournful edge to the whole idea. It’s as if these two companies—absolute bedrock of U.S. industrial might—have given up faith in themselves and their futures. Is thriving, surviving, and adapting through 331 years of total history not enough to keep these companies confident? DuPont was founded in 1802, Dow Chemical Co. in 1897.
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The Packer
Just like organic, American consumers value locally grown fruits and vegetables over any other food.
A poll this fall found 67 percent of consumers say it is important that they buy locally grown fresh produce, higher than dairy, bakery, deli or frozen food.
This makes sense.
To a consumer, a nearby corn field or apple orchard comes to mind so much quicker than a beef packing plant or dairy farm.
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Food Safety News
According to the government of Canada, 1 in 8 Canadians will come down with a case of foodborne illness this year. How is it possible that so many Canadians fall victim to a preventable condition? According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the situation is worse in the United States, with 1 in 6 Americans suffering the same fate every year. Obviously something is badly broken in our food supply chain.
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