Specialty Crops

New Great Lakes Tech Event Targets Specialty Crop Survival

Mon, 11 May 2026 21:29:53 GMT

Great Lakes Tek Flex seeks to connect growers in the Great Lakes region with in-field tech demos. The new tech event is set for Sept. 10-11 at the Michigan State University Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center in Benton Harbor, Mich.

Great Lakes Tek Flex plans to feature the latest in weed mitigation and crop management solutions using robotics, drones and precision agriculture technology. The event seeks to improve the sustainability and resiliency of Great Lakes specialty crop growers by removing barriers to technology adoption.

Mark Ledebuhr, principal with Application Insight, says the event is much needed for the region with growers struggling to find labor, whose needs are different than their Western counterparts. It will also bring together ag tech companies with growers in need of innovation.

“If we don’t get [innovation], we may not be growing a lot of specialty crops that we grow in Michigan in 10 years here,” he says.

Ledebuhr says he understands some of the challenges to marketing to growers in this region, which spans about eight states as well as the Canadian province of Ontario. The Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center is located within a day of 80% of the fruit and vegetables grown in the region, he notes.

“That’s the reason for the site choice,” he says.

Ledebuhr says it’s important to get the technology in front of growers in similar conditions to what’s grown in the region, adding that Great Lakes Tek Flex is designed to bring together entities to work together to solve some of the challenges today’s growers face.

“If you take smart people who are invested in the problem, and you get them together in a room, and you create the space to solve problems, problems get solved,” he says.

But this is more than just a tire-kicking event, he says.

The first day will connect growers with companies that have commercialized technologies with demonstrations to allow for interactions with company representatives so that growers can better understand the benefits of these technologies. These include see-and-spray technology, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence perception tools, orchard management, planting, vegetation management, harvesting, drone spray and AI decision support.

“We see technology transforming fields, making planting, monitoring, weed management and harvesting more precise and efficient,” says Randy Stratton, director of Great Lakes Tek Flex Expo and Field Days. “With these innovations, growers are building a smarter, more sustainable future for farming.”

The second day will feature targeted discussions with government officials, industry groups and supporting industries to better identify and align resources and activity to streamline the process of tech adoption.

“I’ve watched more technologies leave this market not because they didn’t have significant benefits, but because we couldn’t figure out how to make space for them to actually help farmers improve,” Stratton says. “So it was organizational and regulatory disincentive that kept these things out of the market.”

Ledebuhr says more companies will be added, but a list of the participating companies can be found at GLTekFlex.org .

Event partners and sponsors include Michigan State University Extension; Michigan Department of Agriculture; Michigan Vegetable Council; Michigan Grape Growers; Michigan Horticultural Society,; Ohio State University; Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness; Cornell University; The Ontario Ag Robotics Working Group; and Meshcomm Engineering.

“This event is the first of its kind in North America, right here in the Great Lakes region,” says Mike Reinke, Michigan State University viticulture Extension specialist and Great Lakes Tek Flex board member. “Growers and agronomists are going to find new and proven agri-tech manufacturers demonstrating their technology and connecting with potential end users of these amazing tools.”

Specialty Crop Growers Secure Pivotal House Victory as Pressure Mounts on Senate

Fri, 01 May 2026 09:30:06 GMT

With the clock ticking on economic stability for American growers, the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance and other industry organizations are calling on the Senate to capitalize on yesterday’s House passage of H.R. 7567, arguing that family farms cannot survive another year of legislative gridlock.

SCFBA issued a statement following the House passage that applauded the move and singled out congressman Glenn “GT” Thompson for his push to get a farm bill passed.

“The Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance commends House Agriculture Committee Chairman Thompson for his leadership and perseverance, and we thank the House for advancing H.R. 7567, marking a pivotal step forward for American agriculture,” the statement reads. “This bill includes key bipartisan provisions that would strengthen the competitiveness of family farms producing specialty crops across the nation.

“As specialty crop producers face urgent and unprecedented economic pressures, enacting a comprehensive five-year farm bill is vital to their sustainability and to the communities they serve,” the statement continues. “We strongly urge the Senate to act swiftly so that a bipartisan farm bill can get through conference and to the president’s desk this year. American specialty crop growers cannot afford further delay.”

The SCFBA is co-chaired by Cathy Burns, CEO of the International Fresh Produce Association; Mike Joyner, president of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association; Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Western Growers; and Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council.

USApple Urges Senate to Take Swift Action

USApple President and CEO Jim Bair says the House passage of the farm bill includes meaningful investments in specialty crops. He too is encouraged by the bill’s “more responsive framework for specialty crop assistance.”

“America’s apple growers thank Chairman GT Thompson for his leadership in advancing a new farm bill through the U.S. House of Representatives,” he says. “This is a critical step toward long-term certainty for growers.”

USApple is urging the Senate to act quickly so that a bipartisan farm bill can get to the president’s desk as soon as possible.

FFVA Applauds Legislation Advancement

The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association was also among the organizations issuing a statement after the House passed the farm bill.

“The passage of HR 7567 marks a significant step forward for specialty crop growers and American agriculture,” says Mike Joyner, FFVA president. “We commend Chairman GT Thompson for his leadership in championing this farm bill and are grateful the House today advanced this legislation.

“Importantly, the bill works to address the unique needs of our growers, including provisions to establish a robust emergency assistance framework, strengthen crop insurance and drive advancements in research, mechanization and automation,” he continues. “These measures, and others, will collectively enhance Florida’s fruit and vegetable industry and help ensure growers remain viable despite the economic challenges they currently face.”

FFVA, too, calls for “swift action by the Senate” to ensure the legislation becomes law this year.

CFFA Commends House Passage of Farm Bill

The California Fresh Fruit Association has also officially lauded the House for passing H.R. 7567. CFFA President Casey Creamer highlighted that the legislation provides essential federal support for research, trade promotion and pest prevention, which are critical for growers facing rising production costs and global competition. Furthermore, the bill aligns with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again initiatives to expand American access to nutritious food.

The CFFA is now focused on collaborating with Senate leadership to ensure the bill’s timely passage into law.

“California’s fresh fruit growers and shippers rely on strong federal support to remain competitive and sustainable,” says Creamer. “The passage of the farm bill ensures continued investment in programs that protect our commodities, expand market opportunities and strengthen the future of American agriculture. CFFA is proud to be a member of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, which has played a vital role in advancing key priorities for our industry. We look forward to continuing our work with Senate leadership and remain hopeful that a final farm bill will be signed into law this year.”

CFFA says it remains committed to working with industry partners on behalf of its membership to ensure timely consideration and passage of the House’s farm bill in the Senate.

American Farmers Facing ‘Toughest Stretch in a Generation’

Following the House passage of the farm bill, Invest In Our Land Executive Director Rebecca Bartels is calling on the Senate to protect historic conservation investments and reject proposed cuts to essential programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP.

While advocating for expanded initiatives like the Conservation Reserve Program, Bartels emphasizes that policy gains are hollow without addressing the 22% workforce loss at the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The statement underscores that adequate funding for field staff and engineers is critical to ensuring conservation contracts actually reach the farmers and ranchers navigating today’s volatile markets.

“From high input costs and volatile markets to increasingly destructive weather, American farmers and ranchers are navigating the toughest stretch in a generation,” she says. “Federal conservation programs are among the most effective tools they have to manage that pressure, which is why the historic, long-term conservation investment Congress made in 2022 must be protected and built upon. With today’s House action, the work shifts to the Senate, which has the opportunity to reject near-term EQIP cuts, expand the Conservation Reserve Program and codify the Regenerative Agriculture Pilot Program.”

USDA Says Details On $1 Billion Specialty Crop Aid Payments Expected Within Weeks

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 21:50:53 GMT

Specialty crop producers are likely just weeks away from learning how much support they’ll receive from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s $1 billion aid package , as officials work through final acreage data needed to calculate payments.

In an interview with Farm Journal, Richard Fordyce said the timeline for details depends on information gathered through the recently closed acreage reporting period.

“We’ve reached the acreage reporting signup deadline, and now we need to understand the full universe of acres,” Fordyce says. “Once we have that, we can move quickly into developing payment rates per acre by crop.”

Fordyce indicated producers could see an announcement soon.

“I would expect that we’ll have an announcement in a couple of weeks, hopefully,” he says. “It may be a little longer than that, but we’ve got some math to do and we want to make sure we get that right.”

Acreage Data Drives Payment Rates

The reporting deadline Fordyce referenced was extended by U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this spring to ensure more producers could participate in the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers (ASCF) program.

According to Farm Service Agency (FSA), the acreage reporting window for 2025 specialty crops was reopened and ultimately closed April 24, 2026. The additional time was intended to capture a more complete picture of planted acres nationwide—data that will now be used to set commodity-specific payment rates.

Those payments will be based directly on reported 2025 planted acres, making accuracy in reporting a critical step in determining how the $1 billion in aid is distributed.

Program Aims to Offset Market Pressures

The ASCF program, announced by Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins in February, is designed to help producers weather a range of economic challenges. These include market disruptions, rising input costs, persistent inflation and increased competition from foreign suppliers engaging in unfair trade practices.

Authorized under the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, the program covers a wide array of specialty crops, from almonds, apples and berries to vegetables like broccoli, lettuce and tomatoes, as well as nuts and other high-value crops.

However, not all crops qualify. Dry edible beans and peas covered under separate assistance programs are excluded from ASCF eligibility.

What Happens Next

With acreage reporting now complete, USDA officials are focused on translating that data into per-acre payment rates across dozens of eligible crops, a process Fordyce acknowledged is complex given the diversity of the sector.

“There’s a lot of crops when we start talking about that specialty crop category,” he says.

Once payment rates are finalized, USDA is expected to open the application period. In the meantime, producers are encouraged to prepare by setting up accounts through Login.gov, which will allow for faster application processing when signups begin. Applications will also be available through local FSA county offices.

While crop insurance is not required to participate in ASCF, USDA is encouraging producers to consider risk management tools available under recent legislation to help guard against future price volatility.

For now, all eyes are on USDA’s forthcoming announcement, which will determine how the $1 billion in aid is allocated across the specialty crop sector.

USDA Boosts Specialty Crop Grants to $275M, But $1B in Crisis Relief Remains Out of Reach

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 12:08:45 GMT

Earlier this week, USDA announced the availability of over $275 million in grant funding in fiscal year 2026 for the specialty crop industry through the Specialty Crop Research Initiative , the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program and the Specialty Crop Multi-State Program .

Crediting the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, USDA will provide $175 million per year for SCRI, more than double the previous amount of $80 million per year. It also increased the total funding available for SCBGP and SCMP from $85 million per year to $100 million per year starting in fiscal year 2026.

And while specialty crops welcome the grant funding, the industry is still awaiting payments from the $1 billion to support the specialty crop industry through the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers program announced earlier this year.

“If you go back to July of last year and the reconciliation bill — what they branded as the ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ — it carried all of those tax extensions and also carried additional farm bill funding,” says Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council and a co-chair of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance. “So, it’s very good for this year that USDA is rolling out that farm bill funding for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, for block grants, for all those things.

“That money was basically farm bill money that is coming from an alternate source, but it’s money intended to show up every year to fund those very valuable programs and that’s separate and distinct from the economic crisis that specialty crops — and really all of agriculture — are facing right now, and that’s where the urgency lies,” he says.

In December of last year, USDA announced $12 billion in one-time bridge payments to American farmers, with only $1 billion earmarked for specialty crops, sugar and other unspecified commodities not covered by the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, leaving the specialty crop industry in need of billions in federal aid.

But specialty crops have yet to see a dime.

“It’s our understanding that money has been distributed,” says Quarles of the $11 billion going to program crop farmers. “The remaining [$1 billion] was to be shared between the sugar industry, specialty crops and other commodities. I don’t want to speak for the sugar industry, but I think some of that money has gone out. For specialty crops, no money has gone out. They’re still in the data-gathering stage, so not a dime has gone out under that program.”

Part of the holdup with specialty crop funding may stem from specialty crop farmers’ lack of familiarity with the process of qualifying for aid and Farm Service Agencies not equipped to receive them.

The USDA’s FSA has extended the 2025 acreage reporting deadline to April 24 for specialty crop producers seeking to qualify for the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers program.

“I think there were some capacity issues with FSA,” says Quarles. “Some FSA offices were very well staffed. Other were simply overwhelmed with the volume of growers who were coming in to talk to them. And that makes sense, because the specialty crop industry just hasn’t traditionally been set up to interact with FSA on a very intense basis that our program crop friends are because they’re constantly going in and updating their relationship with FSA, because that’s the conduit to a lot of these safety net programs.”

That was the first challenge that you had to get past as a specialty crop grower.

“These are horrible economic circumstances — not just for the program crops; we’re all in the same economic environment, and we really need to have a comprehensive solution that takes care of all of the vulnerable family farms out there so that they can live to experience the better environment that will be offered by tax reform policy and trade reforms,” says Quarles.

A Simple Call for More Aid

Agriculture has been waiting on an updated farm bill for a decade.

“We want to update those programs. That’s why we’re so supportive of what [House Agriculture Committee] Chairman [Glenn “GT”] Thompson is doing in starting that process and getting it out of the House Ag Committee … and we’re very hopeful it’s going to get to the president’s desk this year,” says Quarles.

Thompson is now advocating for $10 billion for row crop producers and $10 billion for specialty crop growers in farm aid.

But the process of getting funding to specialty crop farmers needs to be simplified, says Quarles.

“Specialty crops are so complicated,” he says. “They’re grown in so many different areas, in so many different circumstances.”

Quarles points to the USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program and the Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops (MASC) as examples of programs that got the money out.

“We have been arguing: Don’t reinvent the wheel,” says Quarles. “Simplicity is your friend. Avoid the things that didn’t work.

“And we’re hopeful that that’s going to be how the administration solves this,” he continues. “We think that’s just kind of common sense. And we’re very hopeful that relief is going to get delivered.”

Quarles says specialty crops are in the same economic crisis as the rest of agriculture, and relief can’t come soon enough.

“If we get to the end of the year and there is no economic relief for specialty crops, a number of family farms will be going out of business,” he says.

The Hormuz Triple Threat: Why the Iran Conflict Is Inflating the American Produce Aisle

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:31:23 GMT

As the conflict in Iran enters its fifth week, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has evolved from a regional skirmish into a direct assault on the American grocery cart. While headline news remains focused on military maneuvers, a triple threat of surging input costs is quietly dismantling the profit margins of U.S. specialty crop farmers.

From the nitrogen-rich fertilizers of the Persian Gulf to the diesel-powered cold chains that move fresh fruit across the country, the fallout of the war is hitting the produce aisle harder and faster than any other sector of the economy, according to Will Westmoreland, founder of The Back Forty and a specialty crop producer in southwest Missouri.

Westmoreland has become a dynamic voice for rural America; his nearly 300,000 followers on TikTok tune in for his “boots-on-the-ground” breakdowns of complex geopolitics. In his viral “Food Inflation Reality for 2026” video series, he warns that official 3% inflation forecasts are already “behind the reality on the ground,” with some produce items potentially seeing price hikes as high as 12% to 13% by the end of the year.

“It’s the perfect storm,” Westmoreland says. “Produce growers in [the] U.S. have felt these effects the worst right out of the gate.”

He identifies this crisis as a layering effect of three distinct burdens.

Will Westmoreland has become a dynamic voice for rural America; his nearly 300,000 followers on TikTok tune in for his “boots-on-the-ground” breakdowns of complex geopolitics.

(Photo courtesy of Will Westmoreland)

1. The Nitrogen Blockade

The first layer of the threat is the immediate spike in input costs. The Persian Gulf is a global hub for nitrogen-based fertilizers, specifically urea and ammonia. With the Strait of Hormuz restricted, shipments to the U.S. have slowed while prices have soared.

“A lot of people limit fertilizer in their minds to row cropping — soybeans, corn, wheat,” Westmoreland explains. “But we use it in every type of plant growth. Right now, input costs for specialty crops are up nearly 41%. Farmers are having to choose between absorbing that debt or seeing significantly lower yields.”

2. The Diesel and Cold Chain Crisis

The second layer is the sheer cost of movement. Unlike shelf-stable grains, specialty crops rely on a cold chain — a fuel-intensive, refrigerated logistics network required to get produce from warm-weather zones like California and Florida to the rest of the country.

Westmoreland points to a staggering 47% increase in diesel fuel prices as a primary driver of inflation.

“There is a huge transportation cost to get crops to places like Missouri and Iowa,” he says. “When diesel spikes, that cost is passed directly along to the consumer. You layer that on top of the fertilizer increase, and the math just stops working for the family farm.”

3. The Petrochemical Packaging Tax

Perhaps the least understood threat is the “plastic tax.” Most fresh produce, from berry clamshells to bagged salads, relies on plastic packaging made from petrochemicals. Additionally, specialty orchards rely on plastic irrigation tubing.

“Plastics are made from petrochemicals. When oil rises 40%, the plastic resin used in packaging goes up with it,” Westmoreland says. He cites the “10-dollar rule,” where every $10 increase in the price of oil measurably raises packaging costs.

While some suggest switching to paper or cardboard, Westmoreland warns of a biochemical reaction that increases rot rates.

“If you switch to paper, the rot rate from California to Missouri might jump to 60% or 70%,” he says. “The industry is stuck: Do you keep the plastic and raise the price or switch to paper and lose half the crop?”

The Road Ahead: When Will Consumers Feel It?

Westmoreland warns that while shoppers are seeing 6% to 7% increases now, the maximum squeeze is likely to hit late 2026 or early 2027.

“Even if the war in Iran ended tomorrow, it would take six to nine months for the energy supply chain to get back to normal,” he notes.

Through his platform, Westmoreland is working to bridge the gap between these complex geopolitics and “rural common sense.” His goal is twofold: education and self-sufficiency.

“I’m shocked at how people don’t put together the impact of what’s driving all this,” he says.

Beyond explaining broken policies, he is now producing content to help Americans weather the storm, focusing on backyard gardening and establishing direct farm-to-table relationships.

The final outcome? “I’m not a ‘sky-is-falling’ guy,” Westmoreland says. “I think we’ll have food, but when you layer an 8% to 12% increase in food costs on top of high utility bills and fuel, it’s a recipe for financial disaster for the typical family.”

Are Fresh Produce Growers Price Takers in a Consolidated Retail Market?

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 21:48:40 GMT

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series that explores the shifting economic landscape of the specialty crop industry.

Marc Arnusch, a third-generation seed wheat, barley, craft grains, silage corn, alfalfa and former onion grower in Prospect Valley, Colo., says this notion of growers being “price-takers” is nothing new. In fact, this notion has been repeated for more than 30 years, starting when he was in college and even when he graduated in the mid-1990s.

“I heard that we’re just price-takers, we’re not price-makers, and that always stuck with me, whether it was the commodities that I grew or the specialty side,” he says.

The Squeeze in Michigan as Margins Tighten

Nick Oomen is also a fourth-generation specialty crop grower with West MI Produce in Hart, Mich. His family’s business grows organic cabbage, zucchini, yellow squash and bell peppers, as well as conventional asparagus, butternut and acorn squash, broccoli, green beans, carrots, potatoes and jack-o’-lantern pumpkins.

For Oomen, the math simply no longer adds up for labor-intensive crops like asparagus facing steep pricing pressure from imports. (Production costs and labor costs will be examined in detail in future articles.)

“In the last five years, our gross sales costs, or what we sell it for, have been probably within 5%,” he says. “It’ll go up and up and down, but it never really moves. I can’t go to a single retailer and say, ‘I’ve seen input costs go up by 20%, labor’s gone up by 15% and my overhead has gone up by 25% in the last four years, and I need a pay increase.’ They just come back with you with, ‘You have to match that price.’”

Oomen says, as a result of these increased costs, his family has opted not to buy new asparagus seed and plant new fields and has instead maintained fields in production. He says they have tried to maximize efficiencies in harvest and packing, but there’s only so much they can do.

“Sooner or later you stop picking the low-hanging fruit, and there’s not much left on this tree,” he says. “You’re trying to squash pennies out to make a difference, and you’re losing dollars. It’s at a certain point [where] you just have to hang it up and say, ‘This is a lost cause. This crop’s no longer going to be profitable.’”

That’s the position Chris Pawelski and his family found themselves in. Pawelski, a fourth-generation onion farmer from Goshen, N.Y., eventually left specialty crop growing due to the challenges of selling his family’s onion crop.

He says he never had a way to verify the price he would get was fair or real; if the price came lower than production costs, he would have to eat it.

“The packer would say, ‘I’m getting them from your [neighbor] for $13 or $12 [per 50-pound bag],’ and there’s no verification; you have to take their word for it,” he says.

Pawelski often faced pressure from imports from Canada or other parts of the country that the packer would use as leverage to keep prices down.

“I had onions sitting in my barn that I could not sell, and they were good onions,” he says. “I would go to the local grocery store 5 miles away, and it was just loaded with Canadian onions, and I had onions sitting in my barn that I could not sell.”

Pawelski says he sold the onions he grew to a local packer-shipper, though he would often have to beg the packer-shipper to take his crop.

“I could not tell you, even to this day, what the process is as far as like when the onions leave my dock,” he says. “I know they go to a local repacker, but the actual full process of what and who the other buyers are like where they are located, I couldn’t tell you.”

Pawelski says while some buyers tried to help keep prices up, generally, the prices were about the same as they were 40 years ago.

“I’m getting paid the same price for my onions dollar for dollar that I got in the 1980s,” he says. “I was paid $6.50 a bag, and I’m paid $6.50 a bag now.”

High Production Costs Reshape the Agricultural Landscape

Jordon Walsworth, a fourth-generation asparagus grower for Golden Stock Farms in Mears, Mich., says growers often face higher production costs, whether that be labor, inputs or more, but they can’t necessarily pass those inflated costs on to the retailer.

“The farmer grows the product, and the downstream packer, input providers, chemical providers, salespeople, they all don’t have a job without that product, and all of their costs have inflationary increases,” he says. “We have the pleasure of paying all of those inflationary increases before we end up with what’s left.”

While costs have gone up, Walsworth notes, commodity prices have either gone down or remained flat.

“What that’s done to the landscape of agriculture is that these specialty crop guys are getting bigger, but the smaller guys are getting pushed out because they can’t afford it on those margins,” he says. “Growing up around here in Mears, everybody had 10 acres of asparagus. Kids after school ... would go pick it. Everything was great. Those farms don’t exist anymore. Now you have to have guys that can capitalize on little economies of scale and stack together the pennies that are left to make a go of it.”

Though his family’s farm is about six years away from a Centennial Farm designation, aside from a genuine love of farming, what’s weighing on him is the potential loss of domestic production. (Import pressure will also be examined in detail in a future article.)

“Where will our food come from if we’re not growing it?” he says.

Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, says another challenge that he’s faced in conversations with legislators is that any government policy change that adds cost to a grower’s production can’t get passed on to the consumer.

“[Legislators] just assume that if they impose a new cost on everyone, it will get socialized, and it just gets baked into the price of goods,” he says.

Over the last two years, DeVaney says retail fruit prices have climbed while wholesale returns for growers and packers moved in the opposite direction.

“Consumers see retail prices increasing and the assumption is that, well, growers are getting some part of that,” he says. “The policymakers and a lot of the public’s assumption is that the growers get a share of the price. Price at retail remains relatively constant, and it’s not necessarily the case that retailers may be using a higher margin on particular products to absorb their overall cost of doing business and potential losses or non-increases in margins on other products. And while that might make sense for their enterprisewide management, it really puts growers in an untenable position to have their own production costs increasing even as their wholesale pricing is flat or declining.”

Starting With the End in Mind

Arnusch says he thought about the notion of growers as price-takers as he entered the fresh produce industry and eventually took over a packing shed. He says he was at one point the third- or fourth-largest onion packing shed in Colorado.

“We started with the end in mind,” he says. “We started with the market, and we worked backward. Let’s start off with these consumer packs. Let’s try to hit that, that high margin, that high revenue, maybe lesser volume, but that high-revenue product.”

Arnusch says he looked to 2- and 3-pound bags and onion sacks to hit that higher-revenue item, and then that informed the types of varieties he planted and the management.

“We weren’t looking to produce the most onions in the state of Colorado. We were looking to produce the highest-return onion per acre, and that’s not just a metric of yield, that’s not just a metric of cost, but it was the metric of market value,” he says. “We did a lot of specialty labeling. We did a lot of things in that space that differentiated in the marketplace, where maybe a lot of the big packers didn’t want to play. That was our sweet spot, and because we were smaller, because we were more individualized, we could do so many more things in the field that rewarded us in the marketplace.”

Shrinking Share of the Consumer Dollar and Consolidation

Washington State University professor and economist Karina Gallardo points to a stark USDA metric: For every dollar a consumer spends at the grocery store, the farmer sees only 14 to 15 cents.

“The rest of the 85 cents goes to the supply chain, whoever is between the grower and the end consumer,” she says.

Packinghouses sit in the middle of that gap. Growers face receiving fees and per-box processing charges, while the packinghouse — and not the grower — negotiates the final fob price with the retailer.

Gallardo works with growers to maximize efficiencies, often fighting the “pick everything” mentality. While clearing a tree quickly cuts harvest labor, it often backfires at the packinghouse.

While a faster pick will cut harvest costs, picking everything will also increase packing charges through receiving fees. She says a grower that reduces the number of defects going into packing by about 15% to 20% will likely see a beneficial outcome.

“It is a very fine trade-off,” she says. “The packinghouse charges $100 to $130 per bin they receive. It is to the advantage of the grower to send only the best apples possible.”

Chris Jones, executive director of the Main Street Competition Coalition, an alliance of independent business owners, trade associations and agricultural groups, says this notion of growers being price-takers is true when there is a lack of competition among retailers. That consolidation has a significant impact on the overall market share; in fact, a study in 2021 showed the top four grocers sold 69% of the country’s food.

Consolidation creates more leverage for retailers over suppliers, but Jones says part of the reason the fresh produce industry finds itself in this situation is the lack of enforcement of antitrust laws. A healthy competitive retail marketplace benefits both growers and consumers.

“For producers, generally, you want a robust, robustly competitive retail marketplace to sell into. And likewise, for consumers, consumers want to have choices,” he says. “When you have a market like that, you create space for smaller-scale packers and produce growers, and you also address the problem of retailers being too consolidated in one area and dictating terms to produce growers and packers.”

Jones says that unfortunately has allowed for continual consolidation in the last 40 years in which those retailers have more power over producers and food product suppliers. He says this consolidation of retail forces a consolidation of packers to meet the scale of this new marketplace.

“It’s created this cascading effect of consolidation that’s problematic if smaller producers want to be viable in this retail economy,” he says. “What we believe is needed is a fair marketplace that is policed by our antitrust laws, and right now, the marketplace is being inadequately policed by the antitrust laws, and that is ... in large part responsible for this problem we have in the economy.”

Breaking the Commodity Cycle and Winning the Fresh Aisle

What can growers do? For one, Arnusch sees an opportunity with value-added.

“You’re de-commoditizing a commodity,” he says. “Even though a specialty crop can sometimes be a commodity, you can add value to that crop by differentiation. You can add a little bit more margin ability into it because it is so specialized.”

Arnusch points to how his company packed two yellow, two white and two red onions in a sleeve that was a unique pack and offering.

“What drew me to that space originally was the opportunity to be economically viable,” he says. “I could differentiate myself in the market. If I’m a corn grower or I grow wheat, I really can’t differentiate myself in that space; maybe by location, maybe by growing a particular variety, but I’m very much still producing a commodity, and when you do that, you’re subject to the market. With a specialty crop, a lot of times you can set the market or participate in that up value.”

Growers can also deploy effective storytelling to help set the business apart from competitors.

“Most consumers, they really don’t care who’s growing their flour,” he says. “They buy corn oil at the store, and they really don’t think twice about the farmer who was behind it. But they pick up that onion, they grab that bag of potatoes, they grab that apple off the shelf and there’s a story behind that.”

Arnusch says that in a time when the disconnect between consumer and grower is at an all-time high, storytelling will be paramount.

“Especially in Colorado, where agriculture feels like it’s on the defensive, I think that’s going to become more and more important all the time, to get the story out in front of the consumer rather than playing defense,” he says. “I think a specialty crop does that for us.”

Dawn Thilmany, an agricultural economist and professor at Colorado State University, agrees, noting that specialty crops have to some extent leveraged branding to stave off the price-taking notion. Thilmany points to about 10 to 20 different fresh produce brands that consumers can likely name, which hasn’t happened in the past.

Along with branding, there are new cultivars that offer unique eating experiences. She points to Cotton Candy grapes and new apple varieties.

“Just even look at the tomato section,” she says. “Now, between all of the different variants of grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, multicolored tomatoes, there’s brand names that weren’t there 10 years ago. So, that’s a signal to economists that they actively have chances to not be price-takers.”

Thilmany says that while retail consolidation may continue, bigger isn’t always better, and the produce industry can look to independent grocers to an advantage.

“Some of those midsize brands can survive by just being in the independent grocers and don’t need to have access to the Big Five, because the Big Five are really the ones who are saying ‘You shall be price-takers. This is what we’re giving you,’” she says. “And if you can stay at the size that the volume you need to move can be workable through what is still left of an independent slice of the food supply chains, you’re going to be in a much better position.”

Innovation serves as a final defense, Thilmany says. Because specialty crop growers are naturally entrepreneurial, growers are more nimble than those in broader commodities.

“With all the changing conditions and stuff, they pivot better, because it’s not as big of a shock to them,” she says.

Kam Quarles on the Path Toward Economic Recovery for Specialty Crops

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 06:25:31 GMT

It’s a challenging time for the specialty crop industry, says National Potato Council’s CEO Kam Quarles, who is one of four co-chairs of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance. Quarles joined “The Packer Podcast” to recap a week of visits on Capitol Hill with more than 100 potato growers from across the country.

“I think everyone is very focused on meeting with their members of Congress, explaining the environment right now, why it’s so dire, and then hearing from those House and Senate members: What’s the timing on an economic relief plan? What does it look like? What’s the size of it? How, ultimately, is that going to get out to family farms to keep them in business, hopefully, to get past this really ugly period?” he says.

And, of course, Quarles says another big part of the conversation was of the draft of the farm bill, which has now moved out of committee. He adds that discussions, markups and everything that goes along with getting a bill through the legislative process are key steps.

“If you never have a markup, you’re not going to get to the president’s desk,” he says.

Quarles points to the significant representation of specialty crops in this new iteration of the farm bill, commending House Agriculture Committee Chairman GT Thompson for working with the specialty crop industry to ensure it has representation in the farm bill. Quarles says this is in part due to the work of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance.

“Over the last 20 years, specialty crops, the U.S. fruit and vegetable industry, has gone from really nonexistent in the farm bill to one of the fastest-growing players in the farm bill, and really one of the most valuable connections directly back to consumers from the production ag side of the farm bill,” he says.

Of the highlights of this farm bill, Quarles says, is language on how the USDA sets up economic relief for specialty crop growers and the understanding that it’s different from row crop growers.

“Specialty crops are different than program crops, and why reinvent the wheel? Just rinse and repeat,” he says. “Make sure the programs that have worked, that have kept family farms in business — reload them with new resources, and you get it out the door efficiently.”

Quarles also points to provisions in this new farm bill for whole-farm revenue insurance for specialty crop growers and funding set aside for research on mechanization to help bring the specialty crop industry into the future.

And it’s that future, Quarles says, that the farm bill needs to look toward.

“We need a reauthorized farm bill right now that is looking not only at our current circumstances but [also] hopefully 10 years out in the future,” he says. “This is an incredibly competitive world that we are in. Our producers are feeling it, and they need tools that empower their competitiveness rather than kind of hold them back to an end, to a world that really doesn’t exist anymore.”

Quarles says this farm bill is long overdue, as this current economic crisis facing farmers is more of a perfect storm. Take inflation, rising input costs from overseas imports, ag labor challenges and layer in nearly perfect weather conditions, which created a larger crop, and you have a recipe for disaster.

“You have a larger-than-average crop that was very expensive to produce, and then you have consumers on the other side who are pulling back on some of their purchases — they’re seeing a more volatile world — and so, demand has been shrinking, and all of these have caused this collision, where, for potatoes, just in the russet variety alone, we’re looking at potentially half a billion dollars in grower losses,” he says. “The American Farm Bureau did an analysis of all of the varieties of potatoes out there. They’re estimating roughly $780 million in grower losses this year, and so extrapolate that out across all of the specialty crops, and the gravity of this crisis comes into focus pretty, pretty quickly.”

Quarles says while many may point to tax changes that could provide growers relief, in the meantime, growers are still farming with the same challenges they’ve faced but now with much tighter margins.

“We’re dealing with the present, and out in the future, those policies are going to take effect; if family farms go bankrupt in that interim, none of those policy improvements are going to impact them,” he says. “They’re out of the game, and that’s exactly what we want to avoid. That’s why this economic relief program is so important to deliver it efficiently, to keep those really valuable family farms in the game until better times are realized.”

Why the Specialty Crop Industry is Rallying Behind the New Farm Bill

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 22:11:30 GMT

Last week Rep. Glen “GT” Thompson (PA-15), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, released a farm bill draft titled the “Farm, Food and National Security Act”. While the bill still needs to be approved in the House Agriculture Committee and sent to the floor for a vote, Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council and co-chair of Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, says this iteration of the farm bill is markedly different from 20 years ago, when specialty crops had to fight for a seat at the legislative table.

“It’s been a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes, really, to get the whole industry on the same page so that we could have the opportunity to be in the chairman’s mark in a meaningful way,” Quarles says.

The Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance released its own statement in support of the bill .

A Unified Voice for U.S. Growers

Quarles says this is due to the work of the entire Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance to align the industry to advocate for the specialty crop industry’s interests in the farm bill. He points to Mike Stuart, former president of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, who helped push the industry to come together “to just get the industry all speaking with one voice about the farm bill.”

He adds this work to push for specialty crops’ interests in each conversation around the farm bill has paid dividends. Specialty crops’ role in the farm bill has residual effects on economic relief packages, which are built on the structure of the farm bill, all to benefit family farms in the fresh produce industry.

“I think it has created real value, not just for our industry, but for policymakers and, ultimately, for the consumers that we serve,” he says. “I’m incredibly proud of the evolution. It’s been great to see the entire story arc of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance.”

Three Keys to a Competitive Future

Quarles points to three sections of the farm bill that could have a tremendous impact on the specialty crop industry. The first is economic relief, he says, which codifies the direct-payment methods developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“To have that policy there for USDA to say, ‘We don’t have to think about this. We know what works, reload it and go.’ It’s going to keep farms in business,” he says.

Second is the farm bill’s attempt to provide risk management tools for specialty crops to provide a safety net for family farms.

“That is an incredibly important thing, likely transformational for the specialty crop industry,” he says. “That, if there is a single thing in this bill, if they get that right, that is going to really impact, in a positive way, the health of the specialty crop industry. It’s having those tools available to farms that want to use them.”

Lastly is a focus on mechanization and technology to help improve efficiency and make family farms more competitive.

“If we’re able to get some dedicated mechanization research, AI … those kinds of things are really costly to do for specialty crops, just because you have so many variations in the commodities,” he says. “If the federal government can go into partnership on some of that research, I think that can be really transformational as well.”

The Imperative of Modernizing an Aging Policy

But, for now, Quarles says the most important part of the farm bill is getting it to the finish line. He says agriculture is now working under a farm bill created in 2016 and enacted in 2018.

“Effectively, you have a farm bill that’s looking a decade in the past, trying to serve an industry that has massively changed in that decade,” he says. “We need the inverse of that. We need a farm bill that is modernized, that is written for today but is also looking 10 years into the future.”

He says the approach to the lifespan of a farm bill may change in the future, too. Gone are the days of a four-year cycle. The farm bill might need to look more to the future with legislation. While there are a lot of unknowns in the future, the farm bill can still help prepare the industry for what’s to come.

“Providing the flexibility, the foresight of U.S. agricultural policy, to deal with potentially a decade of life for a farm bill is going to benefit us substantially,” he says.

Quarles, too, says that while the U.S. is operating under an aging farm bill, which is in desperate need of updates, the rest of the world is moving forward at full steam ahead.

“Our competitors around the world, they’re not waiting,” he says. “Often, we’re not competing against foreign farmers. We’re competing against foreign farmers and their governments, and those governments are investing heavily, and one of their goals is to put the U.S. out of business. We can’t allow that to happen. A farm bill has to empower not only the specialty crop industry, but all of U.S. agriculture. To me, that’s the imperative of getting it updated.”

Although the farm bill still has several more stops in its journey to becoming law, Quarles says he really wants to see the bill move out of committee and onto the floor with bipartisan support.

“We are three years behind when we should have had a farm bill done,” he says. “We’ve got to get this process moving, and to have such a good bill, in our opinion, come out of the chairman’s initial offer to the committee, I think that really speaks well of all of the work that’s been done on a bipartisan basis.”

He says that while there could be a potential for markups to change the farm bill, he’s also quick to point out the specialty crop industry shouldn’t take its eye off the ball.

“Chairman Thompson is doing everything under his power to generate the best farm bill he possibly can, get it out of committee, pass it through committee and send it to the House floor,” he says. “I think the things that we can control are making it clear to every member of the House Agriculture Committee the benefits that are embedded within this bill for the specialty crop industry.”

He also says those in the fresh produce industry communicate with members of the House and Senate agriculture committees to voice support for this farm bill.

“We feel that this is a very worthy bill to move forward,” he says. “I think people really know what the solutions are there. And moving this urgently, efficiently through the House Agriculture Committee and getting it to the House floor, that’s the entire exercise right now.”

And he reiterates the role the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance has played in bringing the collective interests of the industry together to ensure that, regardless of a lawmaker’s location, each hears the same strategic priorities.

“The ability for a member of Congress from California or Florida to hear the same priorities as a member from Maine or North Dakota,” he says. “For them to all be on the same page, it makes it that much more likely that we’re going to get these beneficial policies that we’ve all rallied around.”

USDA to Provide $1B in Specialty Crop Farmer Assistance

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 21:49:48 GMT

USDA will provide $1 billion in assistance for specialty crops, sugar and commodities not covered through the previously announced Farmer Bridge Assistance program, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says in a news release. USDA says these one-time bridge payments will be made through the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers Program.

While USDA says the payments will “help address market disruptions, elevated input costs, persistent inflation and market losses from foreign competitors engaging in unfair trade practices that impede exports,” with $500 million in losses to just russet potatoes alone , the figure falls well short of the full funding needed.

Specialty crop producers have until March 13, 2026, to report 2025 acres to USDA’s Farm Service Agency, the release says.

“President Trump has the backs of our farmers, and today we are building on our Farmer Bridge Assistance program with the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers (ASCF) Program,” Rollins says in the release. “Our specialty crop producers continue to feel the negative effects of four years under the Biden Administration, suffering from record inflation, a depleted farm safety net and delayed disaster assistance.

“If our specialty crop producers are not economically able to continue their operations, American families will see a decrease in the food they rely on, wholesome and nutritious fruits and vegetables,” Rollins continues. “Putting Farmers First is essential to the Make America Healthy Again movement and we are doing both at USDA by expanding market opportunities and improving the farm economy for all producers. Today’s specialty crop announcement builds on our efforts to improve markets for real food into American schools, institutions, and family dinner tables.”

The Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers Program is authorized under the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act and will be administered by FSA.

Eligible Specialty Crops

USDA says ASCF-eligible specialty crops include: almond, apple, apricot, aronia berry, artichoke, asparagus, avocado, banana, bean (snap or green; lima; dry edible), beet (table), blackberry, blueberry, breadfruit, broccoli (including broccoli [rabe]), Brussels sprouts, cabbage (including Chinese), cacao, carrot, cashew, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, cherimoya, cherry, chestnut (for nuts), chive, citrus, coconut, coffee, collards (including kale), cranberry, cucumber, currant, dates, dry edible beans and peas (dry edible beans and peas covered by FBA will not be eligible for ASCF), edamame, eggplant, endive, feijou, fig, filbert (hazelnut), garlic, gooseberry, grape (including raisin), guava, horseradish, kiwi, kohlrabi, leek, lettuce, litchi, macadamia, mango, melon (all types), mushroom (cultivated), mustard and other greens, nectarines, okra, olive, onion, opuntia, papaya, parsley, parsnip, passion fruit, pea (garden; English or edible pod; dry edible), peaches, pears, pecans, peppers, persimmons, pineapple, pistachio, plums (including prune), pomegranate, potato, pumpkin, quince, radish (all types), raspberry, rhubarb, rutabaga, salsify, spinach, squash (summer and winter), strawberry, Suriname cherry, sweet corn, sweet potato, Swiss chard, taro, tomato (including tomatillo), turnip, walnuts and watermelon.

ASCF payments are based on reported 2025 planted acres.

Eligible farmers should ensure their 2025 acreage reporting is factual and accurate by 5 p.m. ET on March 13. Commodity-specific payment rates will be released by the end of March. Crop insurance linkage will not be required for the ASCF program. However, USDA strongly urges producers to take advantage of the new “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” risk management tools to best protect against price risk and volatility in the future.

More information on ASCF is available online at fsa.usda.gov/fba , or producers can contact their local FSA county office.

Your next read: Specialty Crops in Crisis: Will They Receive the Farm Aid They Need?

Bipartisan Specialty Crops Caucus Calls for Immediate Action on $1B in Farm Aid

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:48:08 GMT

The Congressional Specialty Crop Caucus, a bipartisan group of more than 100 members of Congress, sent a letter to the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committees on Dec. 18 calling for the immediate release of the $1 billion in USDA Farmer Bridge Assistance Program aid earmarked for specialty crop producers. The entire amount of the recently announced farm aid was $12 billion, with $11 billion going to row crops.

The effort was led by Specialty Crop Caucus Co-Chairs Reps. Jim Costa, D-Calif.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Sanford Bishop, D-Ga.; and David Valadao, R-Calif.

Moments before the letter was sent, The Packer spoke with Rebeckah Freeman Adcock, vice president of U.S. government relations for the International Fresh Produce Association, about why the letter was necessary and what IFPA and Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance hope it will achieve.

“First and foremost, we are working with USDA to make the case for the $1 billion that is available for our use, but we know that’s not enough,” Adcock says. “Quite frankly, the $12 billion is not enough for agriculture in general, and USDA knows that, it’s just this is what they have.

“IFPA and others have done a big push on this letter with our grassroots and our member leaders to make sure that congressional offices understand how serious this is, especially for certain growers … If we’re not taking care of our core production on the North American continent, which is very much [specialty crops], things are going to begin showing up in very bad ways,” she adds.

Without adequate federal aid, what’s at stake for specialty crop producers?

“We’ve already seen bankruptcies,” Adcock says. “We’ve seen consolidations — and there’s multiple factors that contribute to that … but the bottom line is, many operations that are purely production are struggling, and they’re struggling for a variety of factors, labor being the biggest one.

“If you’re turning a profit or able to just manage escalating and inflationary costs for inputs and many other things, but you can still pull together a price that could make up for that, it makes sense,” she adds. “But when your labor costs have gone up 47% to 65% … and your profit margin was 10%, you’re done. You’re out. You’re upside down.”

SCFBA says specialty crops — including fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, nursery, greenhouse, and floriculture products — generate more than $75 billion annually in U.S. agricultural cash receipts, account for more than one-third of all U.S. crop sales and support rural economies nationwide.

Yet, SCFBA says, under the current USDA farm aid framework, $11 billion is allocated to row crops while only $1 billion is reserved for specialty crops and other commodities, with key details on eligibility, payment formulas and timing still unresolved.

“After months of uncertainty, specialty crop growers urgently need clarity and meaningful relief, and we appreciate the Specialty Crop Caucus for elevating this issue and making clear that specialty crops must be included in any relief package for American agriculture,” the co-chairs of the SCFBA say in a news release. “Specialty crops are both an economic engine and the source of the most nutritious foods in the American diet, but current policies fail to reflect their importance to public health and food security.

“Specialty crop growers cannot afford further delay, and we urge congressional leadership and the administration to move immediately to deliver proportional, transparent, and timely relief that reflects the economic significance and unique cost structures of specialty crop agriculture,” say the SCFBA co-chairs.

What response does Adcock hope the letter receives?

“I think the response we will get is going to be an acknowledgement of what we’ve already started: to really hear from Congress, both House and Senate, that they know ag needs more, and they know specialty crops are as critical as the rest,” she says. “It’s building the case that’s already begun and just putting it on paper … to make sure that when we’re talking about additional aid — additional bridge opportunities to get agriculture through to a better day — we’re on the record saying specialty crops have to be a meaningful part of that.”

Your next read: Specialty Crops in Crisis: Will They Receive the Farm Aid They Need

Specialty Crops in Crisis: Will They Receive the Farm Aid They Need?

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 13:13:55 GMT

Specialty crop growers are facing an unprecedented economic crisis, with the National Potato Council reporting potential losses of $500 million for russet potatoes alone this year.

While the USDA recently announced $12 billion in one-time bridge payments to American farmers, only $1 billion was earmarked for specialty crops, sugar and other unspecified commodities not covered by the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, leaving the industry in need of billions in federal aid.

“We throw the word ‘unprecedented’ around a lot, but in this case, it really is unprecedented,” says Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council and a co-chair of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance , adding that farmers, including growers of specialty crops, are in economic crisis.

“Just for the russet variety of potatoes alone, we’re looking at potentially half a billion dollars in losses this year,” he says.

Losses brought about by what Quarles calls a “multi-layered perfect storm” of substantially higher input prices on pesticides and fertilizer, soaring ag labor costs and a bumper crop of potatoes at a time when major players in the global marketplace are pulling back on purchases in reaction to softness in the global economy.

“You’ve got a big crop that was expensive to grow, coupled with some uncertainty with substantial players, customers, not purchasing at the pace they normally would be. It’s simple supply and demand,” he says. “You’ve got more supply out there than the demand can support, and that is a pretty common refrain, not just for our commodity but really across agriculture right now.”

Kam Quarles is CEO of the National Potato Council and a co-chair of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance.

(Photo courtesy of the National Potato Council)

Why were specialty crops largely excluded from the USDA’s farm aid package?

“I think the administration is dealing with a difficult situation in that they just don’t have enough resources to cover the need; the scope of what’s facing us and not just specialty crops, obviously, but nearly all of us in agriculture,” Quarles says.

The difference between program crops and specialty crops is also a factor.

“Program crops are called program crops for a reason. They have government programs supporting them,” he says. “Specialty crops do not. And those program crops also have a futures market underpinning each one of those commodities, so it’s very easy to structure a trigger for government relief when they see substantial price declines in a particular commodity, then the government will kick in and help those producers.

“Specialty crops don’t have any of those futures markets, so it was relatively simple to construct a process to get that $11 billion of the $12 billion out the door to the program crops,” he continues. “It’s much more complicated to deal with specialty crops that have never been structured in the way that program crops are to be a partner with the government.”

Will There Be More Funding for Specialty Crops in 2025?

Following the USDA announcement of farm aid, the International Fresh Produce Association and its CEO Cathy Burns, who is also a co-chair of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, encouraged its members to influence agricultural policy and support specialty crop growers by helping to circulate a “Dear Colleague” letter urging agriculture committee leaders to deliver targeted economic aid for specialty crop growers and to press USDA to release the $1 billion slated for non-FBA commodities.

“We recognized that the administration was not going to have access to enough money,” Quarles says. “We knew what that universe looked like, and that the universe wasn’t big enough, so we assumed that we were going to have to go back to Congress and make our case for a much bigger second round of funding.”

How much additional funding is needed?

Quarles says specialty crops need between $4 billion and $5 billion, but as they represent roughly 33% of U.S. ag crop production, it stands to reason specialty crops would receive about a third of whatever additional funds are distributed.

To see those funds delivered, specialty crops will need to attach the relief to something that will get to the president’s desk and be signed.

“Around here, we call it a ‘must pass vehicle,’ something that Congress has to deal with,” he says. “Introducing a bill that is perfect but has no chance of getting the votes in either the House or the Senate is a useless exercise. You’ve got to attach it to something that’s going to go.

“A huge amount of the focus right now is: how do we get the number right from Congress, and how do we get it to the president’s desk?” he adds.

Quarles and fellow Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance co-chairs, including Burns; Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Western Growers; and Mike Joyner, president of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, along with other industry leaders, have a track record of making specialty crop farmers’ voices heard and getting funded.

“Over several different farm bills, we have been very good at just wrapping our arms around the entire specialty crop industry and unifying our voices around big issues,” says Quarles, pointing to the MASC (Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops) program as an example of something that wasn’t farm bill related but was structured in a way that worked for policy makers.

“We’re doing that exact same thing right now in terms of this big specialty crop relief package,” he says. “It’s not technically a Farm Bill Alliance effort, because it’s not — it’s not a farm bill that’s going to carry it — but it’s all the same players, all the same structure of communication and coordination that has worked so well for the industry in the past.

“We were able to get, very successfully, to the finish line on the MASC payments back in July, he continues,” he adds. “We’ve been able also to deliver our wins on farm bills in the past. We know how to get these things done. It starts with data. We have to be able to explain our situation and the causes of it to the policy makers as well as to the public. We’re doing that, and I think we’re doing it pretty effectively right now.”

Quarles says specialty crops working together is also critical to success.

“Anybody who thinks a single commodity is going to go pull some kind of rabbit out of their hat through one-off efforts is kidding themselves,” he says. “This is going to be all of specialty crops, and really all of agriculture, providing the support to the House and Senate … to give them our best advice on what that top line number needs to be. And then, certainly, we’ve got to be out there justifying why this is so important at this time — all of the national security and affordability implications of what’s going on here.”

In terms of when relief is coming for specialty crop farmers, Quarles says in an election year with a short runway to bring attention to this issue, the pressure is on.

“There’s a lot of work that’s going on right now before the year is out, and when we get back right after New Year’s, I think it is going to be a dead sprint, with all of these policymakers on the Hill, to get this thing done,” he says.

Authentic Flavors and Real Relationships: Seen and Heard at the 2025 New York Produce Show

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 20:38:51 GMT

NEW YORK CITY — Each year, the New York Produce Show delivers great products, innovation, people and a regional school spirit that’s palpable on the expo floor. This year was no exception. Here’s more from last week’s gathering at the Javits Center:

Guacamole Has Room to Grow in Northeast

Tara Murray discussed double-digit growth in Northeast guacamole sales at NYPS.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

Sales of guacamole are growing double digits in the Northeast, says Tara Murray of Fresh Innovations and Yo Quiero Brands. The New York Produce Show provided the perfect opportunity to introduce this increasingly important market to the company’s guacamole, roasted salsas and more, including its Cantina Style line of Mexico Inspired Guacamole, Hatch Verde Salsa, Authentic Salsa and Roasted Salsa.

“There’s a great spice mix and vegetables in this line,” says Murray, who sees a resurgence in authentic Mexican flavors in guacamole and salsa. “Consumers are really loving it, and there’s lots of room for growth here in the Northeast.”

Apples Get Ludacrisp

From left, Red Heads Eastern Apples’ Jimmy Smith, Veronica Morales and Scott Dault bring a fresh look to the apple category at the New York Produce Show.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

Rooted in JP & Co. Apple Packaging Sullivan, a 100-year-old Massachusetts company, Red Heads Eastern Apples showcased its rebranded look designed to pop off the shelf.

“There’s lots of browns and greens in the apple industry, so we thought we’d stand out with red and black,” says Red Heads’ Scott Dault. The company also featured its Ludacrisp apple, an open pollinated apple with the crunch and Brix of Honeycrisp with tropical flavors, Dault say.

Doing What Greenhouse Growers Do Best

Great Lakes Mike Faul and Justin Wright talk the company’s aim to grow the best greenhouse cucumbers possible.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

Justin Wright of Canadian greenhouse grower Great Lakes Greenhouses, says that while tariffs, trade and freight have required some navigation this year, Great Lakes is sticking to its roots and what it does best: hydroponically grown cucumbers.

Great Relationships

E Armata’s Arthur Depinto and Mike Armata chatted about the importance of connecting with the industry at NYPS.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

Mike Armata of E Armata, says the New York Produce Show is an opportunity to connect with customers and shippers.

“This is about reminding them that we’re here for them for the whole season, not just a couple of times a year,” says Armata, who adds the NYPS is like a reunion. “We have so many great relationships here.”

Serving Customers

From left, Lipman Family Farms; Trey Laporta, Shawna Dalrymple, Evan Laporta discussed consistency of supply at NYPS 2025.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

Consistency of supply was also a key message at the Lipman Family Farms booth, where the team discussed the benefits of working both with its network of farms as well as Lipman’s own farms to serve its retail and foodservice customers in the best way possible.

Micro-greens Go Macro

City Roots’ Eric McClam shared the micro-greens grower’s plans for expansion.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

South Carolina-based micro-greens greenhouse grower City Roots is in expansion mode. It not only just got picked up by Trader Joe’s, it also recently marked reaching capacity at its first greenhouse.

“We need another greenhouse,” says City Roots’ Eric McClam, who says the greenhouse grower is set to break ground on a second facility in 2026.

Fresh from the Farm Fast

Little Junior’s Audrey Primeau and Tom Whyte say the company can get its fresh product to the Northeast in 24 hours.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

The sixth-generation farming family behind the Canadian Little Junior brand says customers can get its romaine, romaine hearts, iceberg lettuce, celery and much more almost anywhere in the Northeastern U.S. within 24 hours.

Your next read:
Innovation and the Younger Shopper: Seen and Heard at the 2025 New York Produce Show

What’s New and What’s Next: Seen and Heard at the 2025 New York Produce Show

Bloom Fresh Declares Victory as China’s Supreme Court Upholds Sweet Sapphire Infringement Case

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 18:02:27 GMT

Bloom Fresh, a premium fruit breeding company, has won a decisive victory in China, where a multiyear infringement case involving large scale hectares of illegally planted Sweet Sapphire grapes in one of China’s most important grape-producing regions, has closed.

China’s Supreme People’s Court has upheld an earlier administrative penalty decision made by the Binchuan Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs concerning a Yunnan-based target engaged in the unauthorized production, propagation and sales of the protected IFG Six grape variety, marketed under the trademark Sweet Saphire and the trade name Zi Yu Tian Zhu, according to a news release.

The court determined the target infringed Bloom Fresh’s plant variety rights; the fine issued by the local authority was correct and enforceable; and the destruction of all propagating materials was lawful and appropriate.

“This ruling represents a decisive enforcement win and reinforces the strength of [plant variety rights] PVR protection in China,” says Bloom Fresh CEO Josep Estiarte.

With the appeal dismissed at the highest level, the fine and penalty originally imposed by the Binchuan Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs will be fully enforced against the target, the release said.

“We applaud the efforts of the local authorities to implement the PVR law and take action against infringements. We also applaud the Supreme People’s Court for uploading the decision and actions of the administrative authorities,” says Alanna Rennie, chief legal officer of Bloom Fresh. “This implementation and upholding of the law in China gives Bloom Fresh renewed energy and confidence to continue investing in the long-term development of varieties for Chinese farms and consumers and commercializing these in China. This cements our long-term vision in China.”

The enforcement victory also coincides with Bloom Fresh’s completion of the IFG Six legalization program in China on Oct. 31.

With this case now closed, Bloom Fresh says it will actively pursue any IFG Six infringements it identifies, ensuring that compliant, authorized growers are fully protected and continue to receive the benefits of being Bloom Fresh licensees.

“Our ambition to support the growth of the industry in China depends on protecting the integrity of our varieties and the interests of our licensed growers,” adds Campbell Banfield, general manager for Bloom Fresh China, Australia and Southeast Asia. “This judgment ensures that legitimate growers can feel protected and is a clear signal to all growers, nurseries, marketers and retailers that it is critical to be confident in the legitimacy and legality of your value chain. Bloom Fresh is here in China to support legitimate operators and work to ensure we have a fair and prosperous industry.”

Bloom Fresh says it will continue to stamp out illegal production and propagation of IFG Six across the country and throughout the supply chain, while investing to build the Sweet Sapphire brand.

Your next read: Bloom Fresh Awarded 750,000 Euros in Italian Infringement Case

Emerald Packaging Eliminates Over 1M Pounds of Virgin Plastic with Help of Partners, Including Walmart

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 21:26:50 GMT

Emerald Packaging, a Union City, Calif.-based supplier of retail flexible packaging for the produce industry, has hit a major sustainability milestone, replacing over one million pounds of virgin polyethylene (PE) with post-consumer recycled (PCR) material, a move it says is a step forward in establishing a circular economy.

Emerald Packaging recently made headlines , when it partnered with Idaho Package, Wada Farms and Walmart to introduce the first 30% food contact PCR bag for the potato category, a project that both pushed the limits of PCR and aligned with Walmart’s Project Gigaton, which targets a 1 billion metric ton emission reduction by 2030.

To date, thanks to the 30% PCR potato bag, Walmart has eliminated more than 200,000 pounds of virgin plastic in its potato packaging.

“I think Walmart gave us legitimacy,” says Emerald Packaging CEO Kevin Kelly, who adds that packing potatoes is a “brutal” business. “Ten pounds of potatoes drop 5 feet into a bag that’s then dropped on a conveyor.”

“The bag has got to have a lot of strength, and you’d think with PCR, that might be compromised, and if you were just using straight PCR, it probably would be, but by blending it with other materials, it’s able to handle the load,” he adds.

D’Arrigo California, a leading romaine shipper, was the first to partner with Emerald on 30% PCR packaging. The companies rolled out PCR bags across D’Arrigo’s entire product line, including romaine lettuce hearts and iceberg lettuce, resulting in the elimination of more than 500,000 pounds of virgin plastic from the supply chain.

“D’Arrigo were the ones who jumped on board first, and it took a bit of courage on their part, because nobody was using PCR in the market, certainly nobody was using it at a 30% level, so I am grateful to them for really getting us started,” he says.

Kevin Kelly is CEO of the Union City, Calif.-based Emerald Packaging.

(Photo courtesy of Emerald Packaging )

The road to sustainable packaging success has been a long one, Kelly says. For more than two decades, the California Green Business has been at the forefront of sustainable produce packaging solutions, which until now, “have never really had legs,” due to the cost question, he says.

Given this milestone has been decades in the making, how does it feel to eliminate 1 million pounds of virgin plastic?

“I just have gratitude for getting to this moment, because I’ve always wanted to have an environmental achievement, especially given the reputation plastics have, and so to finally be able to do this is just thrilling,” Kelly says.

Integrating PCR materials not only diverts plastic waste from landfills but also significantly reduces the carbon emissions associated with the production of virgin plastic, he says. According to a 2004 study by University of California scientists, increasing the use of PCR has the most significant impact on waste plastic tonnage and GHG reduction compared to any other possible environmental action.

It’s improved packaging sustainability that’s gaining attention from a broader audience.

“For folks like Cal Recycle, as they’re putting the regs in place for SB 54, they can point to us and say what PCR can be used in food packaging and propose mandates for it,” Kelly says. “What I’m hoping then will happen is that you’ll see more companies jump into the PCR market.”

More packaging companies in the market could also mean more demand for reprocessors, some of which have closed in recent years.

“If any more close, PCR might be in trouble, and it shouldn’t be that way,” he says.

With an eye to the bigger environmental picture, Kelly views competitors entering the 30% PCR packaging space as a boon.

“There’s other potato packers now coming forward, wanting to use it, and we’re seeing other companies like Fox Packaging start to market 30% PCR,” he says. “Having a competitor adopt this product means less plastics, so I take it as a positive sign.”

Others Leading the Charge

Kelly also points to industry organizations including Western Growers Association and the Canadian Produce Marketing Association as leading the sustainable packaging charge with their members.

“Those guys are nails on packaging,” he says. “They have educated themselves on packaging issues, they’re talking to their members, and they’re banging the drum on getting realistic about what’s going to be required of them, in terms of environmental mandates.”

They’re also talking to regulators about what’s realistic for produce packaging, Kelly says, who adds: “You can’t use PCR right now, for instance, in salad packaging. If you use 20% or 30% PCR in the packaging, the oxygen transmission rate variability would go to 20% to 25%, and the standard is plus or minus 10%, but really it is plus or minus 5%. Twenty percent variation is just going to lead to a lot of food waste.”

Adding to the challenge is that packaging and reporting requirements differ from state to state.

To help navigate these regulatory complexities, Emerald has hired a government affairs adviser and is sharing that resource with industry organizations.

“Packaging has become as important to folks as water,” Kelly says. “It probably ranks second to water, but it’s way up the chart compared to where it was 10 years ago.”

Your next read: Walmart Introduces First 30% Post-Consumer Recycled Bag for Retail Potatoes

North American Produce Industry Calls for Full Renewal of USMCA

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 22:43:33 GMT

Last week the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) held a three-day public hearing, Dec. 3-5, on the operation of the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in preparation for the first Six-Year Joint Review of the USMCA on July 1, 2026.

Earlier this week, Canadian Produce Marketing Association President Ron Lemaire shared, on LinkedIn, the Dec. 8 letter he penned to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and other Canadian government officials urging for the full 16-year renewal of USMCA.

“On behalf of leaders in Canada’s agriculture and agri-food sector, we write to echo the recent correspondence from our U.S. counterparts and express our strong support for the full 16-year renewal of the Canada-United-States-Mexico Agreement,” the letter says. “Our organizations represent a broad spectrum of agriculture and agri-food industries — including farmers, ranchers, processors and agribusinesses, to name a few. These stakeholders have greatly benefited from the seamless economic integration across North America made possible by the provisions of the CUSMA agreement.”

In the letter, Lemaire goes on to say that the North American free trade agreement is “instrumental in fostering a stable, integrated North American agricultural market.”

“The agreement’s provisions — particularly those related to sanitary and phytosanitary measures, biotechnology, technical barriers to trade and dispute settlement — have provided the predictability and stability, regulatory clarity as well as science-based frameworks necessary for innovation investment and growth,” the letter continues.

At last week’s New York Produce Show in New York City, The Packer spoke with Lemaire on USMCA, Canadian sentiment toward U.S. products and more.

“Our work’s cut out for us, but it’s important that we drive forward together to try and find solutions, because without an integrated North American market, the only losers are the consumer,” Lemaire told The Packer.

How is Canada feeling as we look ahead to the July 2026 six-year review of USMCA?

“If we see a real turbulent negotiation that Canadians feel their backs are being placed against the wall, it’s not going to help the entire perspective on purchasing U.S. products,” says Lemaire, adding that about 69% of Canadians are still eschewing U.S. products, down from well over 70% in February.

“But right now, especially around food, we’re seeing alignment between philosophies, especially within the U.S. state officials and also the Mexican government,” he continues. “And we’re very hopeful that as we move forward, we’re going to see a strategy and clarity around the trade discussion within USMCA and hopefully build on that so that Canadians will be buying strawberries and citrus out of the U.S. and happily consuming them.”

Your next read: Produce Gets Political: NYPS Panel Discussion Examines the State of Trade

What’s New and What’s Next: Seen and Heard at the 2025 New York Produce Show

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 20:29:26 GMT

NEW YORK CITY — From a newcomer in the greenhouse-grown tomato space determined to be different to the challenges facing the apple industry to new products and packaging, the New York Produce Show, Dec. 2–4, set the stage for compelling conversation.

Pluck’d Aims to Set New Bar for Tomato Flavor

Pluck’d’s Ben Alexander and Andrew Shields talked big greenhouse tomato flavor in the Big Apple.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

“We call ourselves the ‘Fresh Flavor Saviors,’” says Ben Alexander with Pluck’d, who adds the new Austinville, Va.-based greenhouse grower tested thousands of tomato varieties before landing on its varieties of choice.

The high-flavor, U.S.-grown tomatoes on the vine will be available year-round from its Virginia greenhouse strategically located 12 hours from Boston and Miami, and six hours from Cleveland, Nashville and Washington, D.C., says Andrew Shields with Pluck’d.

Pluck’d tomatoes will be harvested ripe and can be to markets in 24 to 48 hours.

“Picked today and in D.C. tomorrow,” Alexander says.

Alexander and Shields say the Pluck’d greenhouse will be ready to plant at the end of January and be on shelves by April. Eventually the 65-acre facility will bring 250 jobs to the area, they add.

Pluck’d says it has invested in an automated packaging line and the latest irrigation systems.

“If you get the water wrong, it affects the flavor of the tomato,” Alexander says.

At NYPS, the team presented three of its greenhouse-grown tomatoes set to launch in April, including:

· Preemos: high-flavor slicers.

· Plucculents: tomatoes on the vine with high flavor that Shields describes as a “two-biter cocktail tomato.”

· Plucklings: a snacking strawberry variety tomato with a deep red color. It’s this tomato, Shields says, that “made me realize I never had a [flavorful] tomato before.”

Value-Added Celery Convenience

Alan Ediger and Samantha Duda of Duda Farm Fresh Foods showcased value-added convenience at the NYPS.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

Duda Farm Fresh Foods featured its “best-in-class” celery sticks in a variety of cuts and sizes, as well as sweet corn and radishes from Florida.

The Duda team says they’ve seen a lot of growth in the value-added category since the pandemic, and it hasn’t slowed down since.

New Look for Ready-to-Eat Salad Greens

Misionero’s Hana Mohsin discussed how organic, ready-to-eat salad greens are resonating with consumers.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

Misionero’s Hana Mohsin showcased the company’s newly rebranded conventional Garden Life line, debuting later this month. The company is now using a pre-printed film instead of a sticker on the seal. It also featured its Organic Crispy Green Harvest Blend and Organic Crispy Green and Red Harvest Blend.

“We’ve noticed people enjoy the pre-washed convenience of ready to eat with its 100% yield and no waste,” Mohsin says. “Organic salad sales are No. 2 behind berries because the consumer is loving the convenience and taste.”

Organic Apples: Challenges and Opportunities

From left, CMI Orchard’s Loren Foss, Danelle Huber and Ellie Tucker talk organic apple potential.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

At the Washington-based CMI Orchards booth, Danelle Huber discussed some of the challenges and opportunities facing the apple industry.

“The price gap between organic and conventional continues to get closer on the retail shelf, but the cost to the organic grower is going up and up,” she says. “Labor is a huge part of that. Organic growers can’t use chemicals and have to do things by hand.”

Huber says growers are balancing their conventional and organic crops to make up for losses on the organic side.

“There’s also been a lot of consolidation in the last two years,” says Huber, adding that two apple shippers merged with CMI in the past two years.

On the upside, Huber says, “the organic apple category has huge potential, and we can all work together to grow that. The apple category is also changing by the minute, with new higher flavor varieties to try, so there’s still consumer excitement out there.”

What’s Next in Ornamentals

From left, Bay Baby Produce’s Tyann Schlimmer, Michele Youngquist and Lindsey Lance talk new products for next year.

(Photo by Jennifer Strailey)

With this year’s pumpkin season a wrap, the team at Bay Baby Produce is already looking ahead to 2026. What’s next for the Washington-based company? Its currently testing a new 5-pound bag of larger-size ornamental pumpkins at select retailers and plans to do a full launch next year, says Lindsey Lance.

Your next read:
Innovation and the Younger Shopper: Seen and Heard at the 2025 New York Produce Show

$12B Farm Aid Package Leaves Out Specialty Crops

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 13:32:28 GMT

The USDA announced Monday that it will make $12 billion available in one-time bridge payments to American farmers in response to “temporary trade market disruptions and increased production costs.”

Of the $12 billion provided, up to $11 billion will be used for the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, which provides broad relief to U.S. row crop farmers, according to a news release.

USDA says the remaining $1 billion of the $12 billion in bridge payments will be reserved for commodities not covered in the FBA Program, “such as specialty crops and sugar, for example, though details including timelines for those payments are still under development and require additional understanding of market impacts and economic needs.”

In response, the co-chairs of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance issued the following statement:

“We are disappointed that specialty crop growers were not included in today’s announcement. As we wrote to the President on October 6, 2025 , family farms that produce safe and nutritious fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts, as well as cultivate the trees, flowers, and plants that play a vital role in the nation’s health and wellbeing, continue to face unprecedented economic challenges.

“We stand ready to work with the administration and Congress to advance a meaningful assistance package to support specialty crop growers during this difficult period.”

A national coalition of more than 150 organizations representing growers of fruits, vegetables, dried fruit, tree nuts, nursery plants and other products, the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance was established to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crop agriculture and improve the health of Americans by broadening the scope of U.S. agricultural public policy.

The SCFBA is co-chaired by Cathy Burns, CEO of the International Fresh Produce Association; Mike Joyner, president of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association; Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Western Growers; and Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council.

Unlocking New Potential With Specialty Finger Limes in Florida

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 18:53:07 GMT

As Manjul Dutt, assistant professor of horticultural sciences with a focus on citrus and subtropical fruit breeding and genetics at University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, has focused on unlocking citrus breeding stock that is tolerant of resistant to the citrus green disease huanglongbing, he’s also unlocked a new potential opportunity for Florida growers.

Australian finger limes are naturally HLB-tolerant. As a post-doctoral researcher, Dutt says he crossed finger lime genetics with conventional citrus to look for the next generation of sweet orange and grapefruit cultivars resistant or tolerant to the citrus greening bacteria. And as he evaluated some of the germplasm, a citrus grower told him that there was an economic potential for new finger lime varieties.

“There is a huge need in the specialty citrus industry for finger limes,” Dutt says, noting that the grower told him, “‘I just came back from California, and I paid a lot of money to buy a dish that had the finger lime pearls in it.’ He’s like, ‘high-end restaurants, chefs, bartenders, mixologists — they all would really want the finger lime.’”

Lijun “Angelia” Chen, assistant professor in the UF Food and Resource Economics Department, says part of the appeal of finger limes is the “tiny, caviar-like pearls that pop in your mouth with a fresh citrus burst.”

Dutt says he decided to expand the breeding program to look at the economic potential of the finger lime crosses, while remaining focused on providing growers with HLB-tolerant sweet orange, grapefruit and citrus rootstock.

He conducted an informal survey on the color profile of finger limes, which range from pale to pink to deep red.

“Nine out of 10 people wanted red, so we decided to release the red ones,” Dutt says.

This specialty program has released two varieties. UF SunLime is a hybrid finger lime that produces large, cylindrical fruit. Fruits range from 2.7 inches to 3.1 inches and offer a rich red color when mature. The fruit weighs around 30.4 grams on average and has up to five seeds. UF RedLime produces narrow, longer fruit that range from 4.2 inches to 4.8 inches. Fruits weigh 28.8 grams and average four to 14 seeds.

SunLime is tolerant to HLB but susceptible to citrus scab, and RedLime is highly tolerant to HLB.

Dutt calls all this “serendipity,” as he knows that there’s even interest in growers outside of the state. Earlier this year, UF/IFAS held a finger lime field day and some Texas growers who attended saw the potential to bring UF SunLime and UF RedLime to the Dallas and Houston markets.

Unlocking the Potential

Dutt says he has worked with UF colleagues to look at the economics of consumer interest, as well as with Chen to look at the sensory attributes and with the horticulture department to look at postharvest.

Chen says her team seeks to address key barriers to a successful value chain for Florida finger limes.

“On the economic and marketing side, we’re exploring market potential from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, including growers, extension professionals, consumers, chefs and mixologists, to support informed, sustainable growth,” she says.

While there’s interest from growers, thanks in part to HLB resistance, consumer awareness and knowledge about finger limes remains low, Chen says, though food enthusiasts, connoisseurs and adventurists have shown strong interest in the specialty citrus.

“Finger limes, positioned as a specialty/luxury product (due to novelty and high price points), have gained significant attention in high-end culinary and mixology scenes,” she says. “However, the supply chain still needs development, as growers want to know who to sell to and consumers want to know where they can buy them.”

But Chen sees potential as consumers seek out creative dining and craft cocktail experiences.

“Finger limes benefit from this trend because they’re unique, eye-catching and elevate presentation and flavor,” she says. “Plus, the rise of social media and influencer marketing makes it easier than ever to showcase eye-catching dishes and drinks featuring finger limes to a wider audience.

Chen says servers, chefs and mixologists, as well as social media influencers, can help promote the use of finger limes in food and drinks, noting this can help inform consumers on how to best incorporate finger limes into their households and shape initial demand.

“In-store sampling, trade show displays and farmers market appearances can all be promising venues for continued promotion and education,” she says.

But she tempers that potential with the caution that awareness for finger limes should grow slowly and steadily to ensure finger limes’ long-term potential in the industry.

“Continued research is critical to ensure sustainable growth of this specialty citrus and avoid potential boom-bust cycles,” Chen says. “Strategic market development backed by data will help finger lime producers build long-term viability in this emerging sector.”

Enza Zaden, Pairwise on Mission to Feed the World Vegetables

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 18:19:05 GMT

Enza Zaden, a Netherlands-based vegetable breeding company that develops and supplies vegetable seeds for some 30 crops to growers worldwide, has entered a strategic agreement to license Pairwise’s Fulcrum Platform, a suite of precision plant breeding tools.

“At Enza Zaden, our mission is to grant people everywhere access to healthy vegetables by developing high-quality varieties and seeds,” says Jaap Mazereeuw, CEO of Enza Zaden. “This collaboration reflects our commitment to breakthrough plant science and responsible innovation to benefit growers, consumers and the environment. Pairwise’s Fulcrum Platform equips us with advanced tools for research, strengthening our ongoing focus on sustainability and creating value for our customers.”

Co-founded by the inventors of CRISPR, Pairwise’s Fulcrum Platform aims to accelerate the development of climate-resilient, nutritious and sustainable crops. By integrating advanced gene-editing tools with its intellectual property portfolio, Pairwise says the platform enables accelerated agricultural innovation worldwide.

“Enza Zaden has a long tradition of developing innovative vegetable varieties. We’re proud to support them in accelerating the natural potential of crops with cutting-edge tools,” says Tom Adams, CEO of Pairwise. “Gene editing is a precise, modern breeding method that complements traditional approaches, enabling breeders to achieve results faster while addressing key challenges like sustainability and disease resistance. Gene editing represents a vital tool for advancing resilient, climate-smart crops that align with sustainable agriculture goals.”

To learn more about the partnership, The Packer connected with Xana Verweij, global biotech director for Enza Zaden.

What are the most pressing challenges vegetable growers face today that gene editing can solve, and how will Enza Zaden and Pairwise joining forces help to expedite these solutions?

Verweij: The world’s population is growing rapidly, and climate change is intensifying the challenges faced by vegetable growers. At Enza Zaden, we contribute to the global availability of healthy food and a sustainable future by developing vegetable varieties that, for example, are resistant to diseases and better able to withstand extreme weather conditions.

The agreement with Pairwise is focused on research and innovation in plant science, supporting Enza Zaden’s mission to breed vegetables that help feed the world. Gene-editing technology will be used to enhance our research programs. The goal is to accelerate the development of improved vegetable varieties that meet the evolving needs of growers, retailers, and consumers.

Are there certain types of vegetables on which Enza Zaden will be focused using the Pairwise platform breeding tools?

The GE technology and IP licensed from Pairwise will be used to enhance Enza Zaden’s research programs. The goal is to accelerate the development of vegetable varieties that meet the evolving needs of growers, retailers and consumers. At this moment all use is focused on research; any future commercial use will be considered in line with regulatory and market developments and Enza Zaden’s strategy.

What are some of Enza Zaden’s past vegetable seed innovation success stories, and what impact have they had on the fresh produce industry?

Enza Zaden has developed tomato seeds with resistance to Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus (ToBRFV), a major global threat to tomato production. These resistant varieties help growers maintain yields and fruit quality, reduce losses and ensure a reliable supply for retailers and consumers.

Each year, Enza Zaden introduces approximately 100 new varieties designed to help growers worldwide produce healthy, diverse and sustainable food. Do you expect the partnership with Pairwise will eventually result in the commercial launch of new vegetable seeds?

The agreement is focused on research use at this moment; there are no genome-edited varieties being introduced to the market as part of this agreement. Enza Zaden’s commitment to non-GMO commercial breeding remains unchanged. Possible commercial use will be communicated when relevant.

New Crop Insurance Company Leverages Data to Help Growers Better Understand Risk

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 20:30:51 GMT

Andrew Burdock, CEO of Insure.ag, says he saw a strong need for specialty crop growers to have data to make better decisions on the amount of risk they undertake with a crop insurance policy. Burdock, a co-founder of Aerobotics, which uses drone and phone imagery to provide farming insights, says he also saw this need as crop insurance adjusters used Aerobotics’ insights to gain better data.

“We saw a real opportunity to, instead of doing the inspections and doing essentially audits for crop insurance companies, we could go back to our core, which was working with growers — and instead of using this data for the audits, use it for the grower to set up this crop insurance policy,” he says. “Because what we’re seeing was a lot of these numbers in these crop insurance policies were incorrect.”

Burdock says that growers might take a policy out for 1,000 acres, but there might be declining trees, pump houses, wells or missing trees that would impact claims.

“A lot of these guys had 100% stand in their policies,” he says. “It was leading to issues when a claim came around and the adjuster came out, and then there was an argument about what was in the policy upfront. We saw an opportunity, really, to become a crop insurance broker using our data to help growers put the policies together.”

Burdock says this is what started Aerobotics Crop Insurance Solutions (ACIS), which Burdock has now purchased and spun off into its own entity, Insure.ag.

“We built up quite a significant customer base there, and we’ve really helped mainly large growing groups where the guys have got 20,000 acres — very difficult to manage that crop insurance policy,” he says. We’ve always really wanted to grow this thing out. I think we’ve piloted pretty much well inside Aerobotics and it came to a point where we needed to grow the team and really like take this thing to the next level. Over the past year, I’ve been out trying to raise capital to purchase the crop insurance business out of a robotics and spin it out into its own separate entity.”

Burdock says Insure.ag will use data from Aerobotics and CropGuard to help provide growers with a better understanding of historical trends and future projections for better policies. He says growers often struggle to find the optimal coverage for both farm economics as well as potential risk.

“We have partnered with a company called CropGuard that has built technology to solve for this,” he says. “They’ve got technology that uses AI and goes and looks at historicals for your crop type in your county and also predicts how the future is going to turn out. It does a 10-year forecast analysis of different outcomes and then predicts where it thinks you would have the best bang for your buck on your crop insurance spend.”

Burdock says he wants to bring the insights from Aerobotics and CropGuard together to provide a differentiated experience for growers to help them optimize coverage, reduce waste and mitigate claim risks.

“We’ll provide the contents and inventory for your policy, make sure that’s 100% right and dialed in and no issues when it comes to claims,” he says. “And No. 2, we will help you make the best decision you can in terms of how much money should you spend on your crop insurance so that you get the best return over the next 10 years on that spend.”

Burdock says his team at Insure.ag continues to grow, and while he wants to make sure to provide great service, he wants to make sure that growers have access to the type of technology that can help ease the struggles of purchasing crop protection insurance.

“I think you really need to be leveraging technology to make sure that you know you’re adding more value,” he says. “It’s a significant investment for insurance for these growing groups and to make sure that that investment is protected and is spent wisely.”

For the Produce Lover Who Has Everything — $60 Grapes Are in Season

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 18:59:26 GMT

Just in time for the holidays, Melissa’s Produce has introduced Red Heart K-Grapes from South Korea. Part of the Los Angeles-based specialty produce company’s luxury line, the glossy, deep-red grapes with a naturally sweet flavor, crunchy texture and signature heart shape are making their U.S. debut with a recommended SRP of $55 to $60 per 1-pound, 5-ounce package.

Melissa’s says the Red Heart K-Grapes combine crisp texture, floral juiciness and a playful shape that makes every bite feel special.

“Red Heart K-Grapes bring something totally new to the grape aisle,” says Robert Schueller, director of public relations at Melissa’s Produce. “They stand out visually and offer a flavor experience that’s exciting, elevated and completely fresh to American shoppers.”

With their distinct heart shape, sweet flavor and crisp texture, each bite of Red Heart K-Grapes feels special, according to Melissa’s Produce.

(Photo courtesy of Melissa’s Produce)

Their vibrant crimson hue and unique form make them as beautiful as they are delicious; perfect for snacking, gifting and dressing up cheese boards, holiday platters, and bento boxes, Schueller adds.

Melissa’s says the Red Heart K-Grapes’ premium look and limited availability create strong opportunities for seasonal retail displays and incremental sales. The company recommends creating eye-catching signage and cross-merchandising the grapes with specialty cheeses, gourmet snacks and holiday gifts in both produce and specialty departments.

Red Heart K-Grapes’ novelty and striking appearance also make them ideal for social media campaigns and consumer engagement, the company says.

Non-GMO and grown with care by farmers in South Korea, Red Heart K-Grapes are available for a limited time, August through December, according to the company. The limited-availability grapes join Melissa’s other luxury produce items, including Rubyglow Pineapple, for which there’s a waiting list; Crown Melon, which is pre-order only; Pinkglow Pineapple; Japanese Jewelbox Strawberries; Pink Elephant Mango from Vietnam; and more.

Melissa’s Red Heart K-Grapes are now available at select retailers and online at Melissas.com.

Sun World Gives Growers, Retailers a Preview of What’s Next for Table Grapes

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 18:35:49 GMT

Sun World International, a global fruit breeder, licensor and marketer known for grape brands like Autumncrisp, Ruby Rush and Midnight Beauty, recently welcomed more than 200 licensed growers and partners to its Center for Innovation in Wasco, Calif., for two field days — one in July focused on early-season grape varieties and second on Aug. 21, focused on late-season grape varieties.

“We had a combination of licensed growers, marketers, importers and nurseries, and with that, we’re really capturing the majority of the supply chain from breeding all the way to the folks that are getting that last mile to retail,” Jen Sanchez, vice president of marketing at Sun World International, told The Packer.

Sun World says the field days offer an in-field look at the company’s latest developments, providing partners with updates on planting trends, performance insights, and shared goals around flavor, sustainability, and market leadership.

Currently, Sun World has growers and marketers in 17 countries, with additional countries to come, notes Sanchez, who says the company’s field days attract licensees from almost all of those countries.

“It’s an amazing opportunity, not just for them to come out and see what’s commercial right now, but also to see what’s next for them. What are we bringing to the table? What’s going to be available in a year, two years, five years,” says Sanchez.

This look at what’s next is crucial, as the breeding process from the first natural seedling crossing to a commercial grape variety on store shelves can take eight to 10 years, says Sanchez.

“Because it is such a long process, we have to be looking ahead and determining what do we think that it’s going to look like five years from now? What are consumer trends that are emerging right now? How can we stay ahead of that?” says Sanchez. “Because it’s not, ‘Hey, let’s just put a new formulation together, drop it in a can, and we’re good to go.’

“That’s not how this works. It is a long, long process, and we do a lot to ensure that the final product getting to our growers, our marketers, distributors, etc., is going to work for them — not only in the field, but in the market,” she says.

Testing Cultivars With an Edge

The July event spotlighted five early-season pipeline varieties — including Sugrafiftythree, Sugra60 and advanced, yet-to-be-released selections. Bred for early maturity, high yield and post-harvest performance, Sun World says these cultivars give growers an edge in delivering fruit that meets both consumer expectations and production needs.

Sanchez says the testing process for each new variety is rigorous because failure is not an option.

“We do a lot of testing…so that by the time it gets to the grower, and they put that vine in the ground, we know it’s going to succeed because…we know what goes into it for the grower. We know that it’s a massive financial and labor investment,” says Sanchez. “So, we’re not going to gamble our reputation; we’re not going to gamble our growers’ money; and we’re not going to gamble our marketers’ credibility.”

Sanchez says once grape varieties are planted, Sun World’s global technical team offers support and evaluation, helping to troubleshoot any issues its growers may have.

At its Center for Innovation, Sun World has a 140-acre test block, where it can monitor different test stages. Once the fruit gets to the midway point between initial testing and commercialization, that’s when Sun World seeks feedback from retailers, growers and marketers on the characteristics in the field.

Sanchez says Sun World has welcomed nearly two-dozen retailers to its field days in the last two years.

“We’ve really ramped that up, especially with the addition of Elena Hernandez, who’s our director of global marketing insights. She works closely with our marketers as well as our retailers to help connect them and then try and build demand in the market for our brands and support retail to help build that business for them as well,” says Sanchez.

Size and Texture Trends

When it comes to top trends in the grape category, Sanchez says size matters.

“People are really interested in larger berries. There’s still a market, obviously, for the smaller ones, but we are seeing people’s preferences change towards that larger berry,” she says. “It’s that idea of the buzzworthy, Instagram-worthy, ‘holy-cow-these-grapes- are-massive trend.

“But they also have to have good texture and flavor,” she continued. “And while I think there’s something to be said for unique flavors, when you really get down to it, and you talk to consumers, they’re like, ‘I just want a really good grape.’”

Sanchez also says the pace of change in the grape category has accelerated and the excitement level around brands has grown significantly, even in the last several years. She attributes the buzz to brands like Autumncrisp, which she says, “has changed how consumers look at grapes.”

“Consumers are realizing that they can have something better,” she says. “Gone are the days of the squishy, dry looking grapes that don’t really have any flavor. Today, there’s crispness. There’s something unique. The crunch, the juiciness — it’s like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. That’s what we are seeing from consumers.”

Consistency is also key says Sanchez. Consumers need to be able to go the store and find Autumncrisp grapes again and again, she says. Because as consumers repeatedly have a good experience with the brand, they become a repeat purchaser for that retailer.

What Growers Want

On the grower side, trends support the importance of yield.

“We want to make sure that that ground is used most effectively. We want to make sure that growers are getting the bang for their buck, if they’re going to put that vine in the ground,” she says. “They want to have something that’s going to help keep them, their business or their family sustained.”

Sustainability is another driver of Sun World’s grape variety cultivation and the company looks at where growers are being hit hardest when it comes to costs, says Sanchez.

“Everything we can do in terms of [developing varieties that require] less mechanical intervention, a reduced carbon impact, a need for less pesticides, less water — we look at those things that we as a breeding organization can help impact,” says Sanchez.

The company also looks at how grape varieties perform in different climates and recommends varieties that maximize the grower’s resources.

“We also look at varieties that are strong in post-harvest, because we do see a lot of product moving around the world,” says Sanchez. “There are now grapes available pretty much every day of the year. And the way that Sun World approaches this is to look for varieties that can help us achieve that year-round availability.”

During the field tours, Sun World received great feedback on some of its new varieties, says Sanchez. “I think looking at the horizon, there’s a lot of opportunity. I think there’s a lot of excitement, and I think that’s the best part of weeks like this, we’re able to bring people in where they can see what’s coming, and then we can help build — obviously excitement, but I think also confidence. I think it’s about building grower confidence that they’re making the right choice about what they’re putting in the ground.”

Sun World says its field day events are more than a look at what’s next in grapes, they’re a celebration of the growers, marketers and visionaries driving the future of fresh produce across the globe.

What’s in the Big Beautiful Bill for Fresh Produce?

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 13:46:28 GMT

House Resolution 1 — also called the reconciliation bill or the “One Big Beautiful Bill” — passed the House on July 3 and was signed the next day by President Donald Trump. The passage was widely praised by agricultural groups as a boon for agriculture and rural America.

“Farm Bureau applauds the House and Senate for passing legislation that will bring certainty to America’s farmers and ranchers,” Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a news release. “Modernizing important farm safety net programs and making permanent critical tax provisions could be the difference between staying in business or shutting down the family farm.”

The Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance (SCFBA) expressed gratitude to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and their chairmen for including investments in specialty crops in the bill.

“Any Congressional investment in American agriculture must include specialty crops,” the alliance said in a news release. “America’s specialty crop growers face a host of unprecedented challenges similar to those confronting row crop producers. Specialty crops represent nearly a quarter of U.S. crop value and make up more than half of what Americans eat. The family farms that provide Americans with a reliable source of fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, and horticulture, deserve meaningful support from their government.”

Agricultural Tax Cuts Among Steep Funding Slashes

The bill includes extensive tax cuts and funding changes across wide swaths of the federal government. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins described the bill as making the “largest tax cuts in history” permanent.

“It provides immediate tax relief to farmers, ranchers, and rural Americans by increasing the small business expensing threshold and permanently extending the Small Business Deduction,” she said in the USDA’s official announcement on the bill’s signing. She added that the bill “bolsters the farm safety net, makes crop insurance more affordable, and protects two million family farms from the death tax.”

These changes mean many direct benefits to farmers and growers and $66 billion in new spending for farm programs .

But the bill also slashes funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the country’s largest federal nutrition program that serves 42 million people who need help putting food on the table. According to a recent report from the Hass Avocado Board , shoppers using SNAP often buy more and more varied produce than non-SNAP shoppers.

The bill also makes dramatic funding cuts to Medicaid, a program the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) called “a vital source of health insurance coverage for Americans living in rural areas.” In a report issued two weeks before the bill was signed into law , NRHA estimated that roughly 1.5 million rural Americans would lose health coverage if the bill passed, and potentially hundreds of already stressed rural hospitals would close.

What’s in It for Fresh Produce?

Earlier projections of funding increases to programs benefiting specialty crops became a reality in the signing of the bill. These include:

Funding of the Specialty Crop Research Initiative will increase to $175 million a year in 2026.
Funding for the Plant Pest and Disease Management and Disaster Prevention program will increase to $90 million a year in 2026.
Funding for the Specialty Crop Block Grants will increase to $100 million a year in 2026.

This latter element is especially important to the widely varied nature of the fresh produce industry.

“The programs that take place in North Dakota or Idaho will look different than the programs that take place in Florida, but they’re all dedicated to enhancing the specialty crop industry,” says National Potato Council CEO Kam Quarles on the impact of the block grants.

What’s Needed Next?

Though the SCFBA called HR 1’s investments in specialty crop growers a key piece of the puzzle to enhance their competitiveness, the group said there is still work to be done.

“Senate rules prohibited the inclusion of many of the innovative policy initiatives that we proposed, such as investing in mechanization and automation, modernizing procurement rules to include more high-value fruits and vegetables, and reforming crop insurance that would provide many of our growers with an affordable and effective safety net for the first time,” the alliance outlined. SCFBA added that the group looks forward to advancing those and other priorities with Congress in the context of a farm bill.

Unfortunately, the next farm bill might be a while coming yet. Most agricultural economists think the country won’t see a new farm bill until 2026 , with a sizable minority thinking it will take until 2027.

Regardless, there are some indications of what the next farm bill might include. In 2024, the House Agriculture Committee put out resources on a potential farm bill that could indicate the group’s priorities.

In a section focused on specialty crops , it allocated $1 billion to specialty crops needs. Many of the funding level changes outlined in the section have been realized in HR 1. However, it also proposed creating several new programs, including the following:

A new Specialty Crop Mechanization and Automation Research and Extension Program, funded at $20 million annually from the Specialty Crop Research Initiative funding.
Reauthorize the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program.
An advisory committee to counsel the Risk Management Agency on crop insurance policy issues of concern to specialty crop growers.

Your next reads:

Senate Ag Committee Pens Windfall Funding to Specialty Crops

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 13:33:25 GMT

On June 11, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry released its legislative text for the budget reconciliation bill . The expansive text covers numerous topics, including funding changes to crop insurance, livestock programs and several ag-focused grants, as well as extensive changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“This legislation delivers the risk management tools and updated farm bill safety net they need to keep producing the safest, most abundant and affordable food, fuel and fiber in the world,” says Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., in a news release. “It’s an investment in rural America and the future of agriculture

For the fresh produce industry, there were some considerable investments in the draft text.

“The specialty crop research initiative funding was up from its current $80 million a year to $175 million a year,” Kam Quarles, National Potato Council CEO, tells The Packer. “That is very significant for the fruit and vegetable industry widely.”

Quarles also cites the increases in the Pest and Disease Program funding — $90 million annually starting in 2026, up from $75 million currently — and to the Specialty Block Grant program — $100 million annually in 2026, up from $85 million currently — as being essential to the specialty crop industry. Additionally, the limitation on adjusted gross income was eliminated if 75% or more income is derived from farming

“We are grateful to Chairman Boozman and his staff for advancing these vital investments in specialty crops,” the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance said in a news release.

“Our message today is simple: Any Congressional investment in American agriculture must include specialty crops,” the release continues. “America’s specialty crop growers confront a host of unprecedented challenges. Rising input costs, limited access to labor, unfair trade practices, disruptions to foreign markets and natural disasters ranging from flood to drought all impede the competitiveness of these family farms. Nothing short of the survival of our domestic industry is at stake.”

Reconciliation vs Farm Bill

While the U.S. is waiting on a new farm bill, many elements that might have gone into a farm bill are making their way into the reconciliation bill.

“Chairman Thompson was playing the hand that he was dealt in terms of reconciliation versus the traditional farm bill process,” says Quarles about Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture. “Chairman Bozeman is doing the exact same thing, and we are very happy that both sides of Congress have included these important investments for specialty crops.”

There is still work to be done, however, according to the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance.

“Senate rules prohibit the inclusion of some innovative policy initiatives we proposed, such as investments in mechanization and automation, and reforms to crop insurance to provide many of our growers with an affordable and effective safety net for the first time,” according to the alliance.

Quarles explains that the reconciliation bill process only allows for funding changes, not the creation of new funding programs; that requires a full farm bill. But both the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance and the National Potato Council, which is a member of the alliance, thanked both ag committee chairmen for their efforts.

“No subsection of agriculture has gone through more change and volatility since the last farm bill was signed than specialty crops,” Quarles says. “Waiting around for a new farm bill has been very challenging for producers, and we are very happy to see both chairmen taking that seriously and investing in this part of the U.S. ag industry.”

Research is American produce’s path forward

Investing in research is extremely important to the future of the produce industry, Quarles stresses.

“The innovation that goes on through public private partnerships in research in the United States is what is going to keep us competitive into the future,” he says. “In terms of our global competitiveness, it’s going to be those type of research investments that keep us in the game and hopefully winning that game.”

He acknowledges research is often time-consuming, complicated, expensive and often so technical as to be out of mind for a lot of people, but the benefits are key. He cites novel potato varieties that are more durable, heartier and consume fewer resources developed with public-private partnerships as an example of the value of research.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that we are going to be one of the highest-cost production areas on the globe for a very long time,” Quarles says. “But we are going to remain competitive through these types of high-risk, high-reward research innovations that are able to prepare our producers forward even when others have the tailwind of low-cost labor or lower environmental regulations.”

“It’s our innovation that’s going to keep us front and center,” he adds.

Ross Chastain's Win in the Coca Cola 600 is a Big Win for Agriculture and the Florida Watermelon Industry

Mon, 19 May 2025 20:07:51 GMT

In a remarkable story of resilience, NASCAR driver Ross Chastain won his first race of the season on Sunday, marking his sixth win of his career.

What made the win at the Coca Cola 600 so impressive is he actually started the race in last position after a crash during practice on Saturday meant he was unable to set a lap time in qualifying. But what makes the win even more remarkable is he was in a backup car.

The first win of the season meant he also got to smash a watermelon in victory lane to celebrate, which is a tradition he started to toast to his farming ties. Chastain, who’s known as The Watermelon Man, because of his family’s background in watermelon farming.

“This thing is fresh from Florida,” Chastain said with a laugh after his win. “It just came up from our family farm. Man, for the Florida watermelon industry, that’s your watermelons you’re getting right now, so y’all better go buy a dang watermelon to celebrate. I want to see videos of smashed watermelons flood the socials. I want to see it. Florida watermelons are in season.”

As a Kid, Chastain Just Wanted to Farm

Behind the wheel of this No. 1 Chevrolet ZL1 race car is exactly where you’ll find Ross Chastain today, but growing up on a farm in southern Florida, NASCAR wasn’t his original dream. As a kid, all Chastain wanted to do was farm.

“I wanted to be like my dad and like my granddaddy and my uncle and be like those guys that told me stories of our ancestors and generations before us growing up in south Georgia during the hard times, but seeing we were living through good times,” says Chastain.

Chastain’s father, a seventh-generation watermelon farmer, raced as a hobby. Chastain and his brother, Chad, are the eighth generation. His family got their start in south Georgia before moving to southern Florida in the 1950s. It’s a place his brother and the rest of his family still farm today.

“Even as I started in NASCAR I thought it was just still a hobby, and I going to school, even started college to get a business education to try to be a little better well versed in what the farm was going to be tasked with in the next couple decades,” says Chastain. “But I never went back. I moved to North Carolina in 2012 and decided to make this a career.”

How He Got His Start in Racing

While his dad raced as a hobby, Chastain is a first-generation NASCAR driver. With a natural love to be behind the wheel, Chastain says he was infatuated with driving anything he could as a kid.

“I just remember driving stuff,” he says. “My dad would have me drive things on the farm as a kid. And then when I first raced, it was late 2005, and my dad asked if I wanted to try driving a race truck. So, he let me drive it around our packing house first. We had a metal building that we packed the watermelons in. It had a shell with dirt driveway around it, and he let me drive until I got going too fast.”

After a couple of laps, his dad stopped him and said, “Let’s go to the track.”

“So, we packed up that Friday night, went over to the track I remember the first time on the track, then that Saturday night racing,” Chastain says. “I crashed, but I fell in love with it. And it didn’t scare me. It was something I liked. I wasn’t good at it by any means, but I fell in love early on.”

Chastain says he was hooked, not only to the adrenaline rush of racing, but also hooked to the wrecker after he crashed.

“But they pulled the bumper bar back out, my dad did, it was still hooked to the wrecker,” he says. “He hooked the chain to the four-wheeler and jerked the bumper out and sent me back out. He asked, ‘Do you want to go back out?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I want to finish the race.’”

Chastain Wants to Share the Story of Agriculture

The Ross Chastain on the track is a fierce competitor whose goal is to win, but off the track he wants to share the story of ag.

“A lot of what I want to do now is tell the stories,” says Chastain. “I want to tell our family’s story. I think I’ve done a decent job of that, but also other farmers.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Like a Farmer (@likeafarmerpodcast)

Through a series called “Ag to Asphalt,” Chastain is shining a light on agriculture and bringing those stories to a national stage.

“To grow our food here in the us is only getting harder, and there are less people and less families involved all the time,” he says. “I like hanging out with farmers. So, if i get to go and hang out with them for the afternoon, see their operation, let them tell their story, show off their family, let him brag a little, and then sit around on the tailgate when we’re all done and have a Busch Light. I mean, I am the Busch Light guy, I’m a beer drinker, and we get to sit around and then just, once the cameras are off, just hang out and actually get to know them. One, selfishly, that’s cool. I like that, and i have this unique platform to share it.”

My family farm, and family farms all across our country are harvesting, farming, or planting watermelons.

🍉 Fact! You need 3️⃣ things to grow watermelon ➡️ ☀️ 🐝 💧 #MelonPartner #WatermelonEveryday pic.twitter.com/4X27vquUyY
— Ross Chastain (@RossChastain) May 8, 2025

Social Media Amplifies His Love for Ag

With nearly 140,000 followers on Instagram and 130,000 followers on X , Chastain is making an impact both on and off the track

“I have a social media platform, and I have the NASCAR platform to amplify it,” says Chastain. “The main job is to go race on Sundays, but if on a Thursday afternoon I can travel in early to a race weekend like here and go out to a farm, that’s cool for me, and I like that. No one is making me do it, but I like it, and it’s rewarding to see these operations and see how they’re adapting, what the new technology is and how they are continuing to survive .. and it can be scary at times to think about American ag and agriculture in general, but there’s families out here doing it.

At just 32 years old, Chastain hopes he gets to continue his dream of racing for years to come. But what does he want his legacy to be? Well, it’s twofold.

“Winning on Sundays is the ultimate goal, and then agriculture gets to come along with that; all the extra stuff gets to come along with that, but my life’s goal is to win more in Cup,” he says.

Chastain’s main sponsor partners include Busch Light, Kubota, Chevrolet, Trackhouse and more, but he is also sponsored by several agricultural companies, including New Leaf Symbiotics.

Watch the U.S. Farm Report segment featuring Ross Chastain’s journey to NASCAR and life on the farm.

$72.9M in funding available in Specialty Crop Block Grant Program

Tue, 13 May 2025 18:06:26 GMT

USDA announced $72.9 million in grant funding available through the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBDG) on May 13. The program funds innovative projects designed to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops through marketing, education and research.

Eligible applicants are agricultural agencies or departments of agriculture in the 50 states, District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Participating states and territories will subaward funding to locally-led projects to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops, including fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture, floriculture and nursery crops. Those interested in applying for a subaward should apply directly through their state departments of agriculture. A list of state contacts is available on the SCBGP website.

SCBGP is funded through the 2018 farm bill, and its funds are distributed to U.S. states and territories based on a formula that considers both specialty crop acreage and production value.

Applications from states and territories must be submitted electronically through www.grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. ET on July 7. Any grant application submitted after the due date will not be considered unless the applicant provides documentation of an extenuating circumstance that prevented their timely submission of the grant application. More information is available in the AMS Late and Non-Responsive Application Policy .

For more information about grant eligibility, visit the SCBGP website or contact the SCBGP Team at scblockgrants@usda.gov .

Altar Produce expands specialty vegetable programs

Fri, 02 May 2025 17:42:18 GMT

Altar Produce says it is significantly expanding its specialty vegetable offerings with plans for green onions, Brussels sprouts and broccoli.

As part of the initiative, the Calexico, Calif.-based company has announced growth on its year-round green onion program, designed to meet the rising global demand with consistent supply, scalable volume and tailored presentations. With operations rooted in strategic growing regions, the program ensures continuous availability and optimal freshness for retail, foodservice and wholesale partners, according to a news release.

“Our ability to pack in any presentation format requested by our clients — from consumer-ready retail packs, foodservice to customized bulk solutions — reflects our deep commitment to flexibility and customer service 52 weeks per year,” said Rodrigo Torres, director of global sales for Altar Produce. “We’re focused on delivering value beyond the field.”

Altar Produce says the program is supported by its investment in infrastructure and production capacity, enabling the company to scale up volume without compromising quality. Each step in the supply chain is reinforced by stringent quality controls and industry certifications, guaranteeing premium, uniform product standards year-round, the company says.

Beyond green onions, Altar Produce is expanding its portfolio with a strong focus on Brussels sprouts and broccoli. These categories reflect consumer trends and market opportunities where the company’s expertise in field operations, postharvest management and logistics can deliver exceptional results, according to the release.

Specialty Crops

New Great Lakes Tech Event Targets Specialty Crop Survival

Specialty Crop Growers Secure Pivotal House Victory as Pressure Mounts on Senate

USApple Urges Senate to Take Swift Action

FFVA Applauds Legislation Advancement

CFFA Commends House Passage of Farm Bill

American Farmers Facing ‘Toughest Stretch in a Generation’

USDA Says Details On $1 Billion Specialty Crop Aid Payments Expected Within Weeks

Acreage Data Drives Payment Rates

Program Aims to Offset Market Pressures

What Happens Next

USDA Boosts Specialty Crop Grants to $275M, But $1B in Crisis Relief Remains Out of Reach

A Simple Call for More Aid

The Hormuz Triple Threat: Why the Iran Conflict Is Inflating the American Produce Aisle

1. The Nitrogen Blockade

2. The Diesel and Cold Chain Crisis

3. The Petrochemical Packaging Tax

The Road Ahead: When Will Consumers Feel It?

Are Fresh Produce Growers Price Takers in a Consolidated Retail Market?

The Squeeze in Michigan as Margins Tighten

High Production Costs Reshape the Agricultural Landscape

Starting With the End in Mind

Shrinking Share of the Consumer Dollar and Consolidation

Breaking the Commodity Cycle and Winning the Fresh Aisle

More Stories from This Series

Kam Quarles on the Path Toward Economic Recovery for Specialty Crops

Why the Specialty Crop Industry is Rallying Behind the New Farm Bill

A Unified Voice for U.S. Growers

Three Keys to a Competitive Future

The Imperative of Modernizing an Aging Policy

USDA to Provide $1B in Specialty Crop Farmer Assistance

Eligible Specialty Crops

Bipartisan Specialty Crops Caucus Calls for Immediate Action on $1B in Farm Aid

Specialty Crops in Crisis: Will They Receive the Farm Aid They Need?

Why were specialty crops largely excluded from the USDA’s farm aid package?

Will There Be More Funding for Specialty Crops in 2025?

Authentic Flavors and Real Relationships: Seen and Heard at the 2025 New York Produce Show

Guacamole Has Room to Grow in Northeast

Apples Get Ludacrisp

Doing What Greenhouse Growers Do Best

Great Relationships

Serving Customers

Micro-greens Go Macro

Fresh from the Farm Fast

Bloom Fresh Declares Victory as China’s Supreme Court Upholds Sweet Sapphire Infringement Case

Emerald Packaging Eliminates Over 1M Pounds of Virgin Plastic with Help of Partners, Including Walmart

Others Leading the Charge

North American Produce Industry Calls for Full Renewal of USMCA

What’s New and What’s Next: Seen and Heard at the 2025 New York Produce Show

Pluck’d Aims to Set New Bar for Tomato Flavor

Value-Added Celery Convenience

New Look for Ready-to-Eat Salad Greens

Organic Apples: Challenges and Opportunities

What’s Next in Ornamentals

$12B Farm Aid Package Leaves Out Specialty Crops

Unlocking New Potential With Specialty Finger Limes in Florida

Unlocking the Potential

Enza Zaden, Pairwise on Mission to Feed the World Vegetables

New Crop Insurance Company Leverages Data to Help Growers Better Understand Risk

For the Produce Lover Who Has Everything — $60 Grapes Are in Season

Sun World Gives Growers, Retailers a Preview of What’s Next for Table Grapes

Testing Cultivars With an Edge

Size and Texture Trends

What Growers Want

What’s in the Big Beautiful Bill for Fresh Produce?

Agricultural Tax Cuts Among Steep Funding Slashes

What’s in It for Fresh Produce?

What’s Needed Next?

Senate Ag Committee Pens Windfall Funding to Specialty Crops

Reconciliation vs Farm Bill

Research is American produce’s path forward

Ross Chastain's Win in the Coca Cola 600 is a Big Win for Agriculture and the Florida Watermelon Industry

$72.9M in funding available in Specialty Crop Block Grant Program

Altar Produce expands specialty vegetable programs