The Wind Machine

Last Tuesday morning I was present as member of the welcoming committee for the official

● USDA announced last Friday its deregulation of a Canadian firm’s–Okanagan Specialty Fruits, Inc.–two varieties

● The Foreign Agricultural Service has long been viewed as an elite arm of the

● This fall’s disruptions of ocean shipping–that have lacerated our tree fruit exports–beg for

●  Now that President Obama has issued his executive order related to immigration, advocates for

● A virtual shutdown of West Coast ports has severely damaged export efforts of

● Greg Walden (R/Oregon) should be happy today. The chairman of the National Republican Congressional

● The Produce Marketing Association has hired a new team, Cornerstone Government Affairs, to represent it

●  The New York Times Magazine issue of October 12 contains a feature article on the

● Last Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued its anticipated revisions

●  Yesterday, Congressman Doc Hastings (R/Washington), who will be retiring at the end of

● Russia’s economic ban on U.S. agricultural goods will affect the Pacific Northwest’s apple

● Secretary Tom Vilsack announced yesterday his long-awaited appointment of 25 members to the Fruit

● Darci Vetter, on July 10, cleared the Senate’s confirmation process and now holds the

● Eric Cantor’s primary defeat and subsequent resignation as majority leader has set in motion

●  The American Frozen Food Institute has launched a 30 million dollar national effort to

● Jim Bair, the new leader of the United States Apple Association, will be making

● Democrats are attempting this week to underscore the lack of movement on immigration

●  Sarah Bittleman, who was the senior agricultural counselor at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 

● Two non-browning Arctic Apples have cleared an important regulatory hurdle, with USDA’s Animal Plant

● Initiative-522, on labeling genetically-engineered foods, failed this week (55.83% to 45.17%) in Washington state.

● On Wednesday, I travel to New Orleans for the annual convention and trade show

Last week I attended, along with about 500 others, the United Fresh Produce Association’s annual

Earlier this week I attended a legal education seminar on estate planning as part of

●  I was in New York City for three days on a family visit, before

● Syria has managed to generate headaches not only for Middle East policy experts, but

●  Last Wednesday and Thursday the United States Apple Association held its 2013 Apple Crop

● FDA took to the highway this week for an informational tour of the fruit

● Newly proposed safety rules aimed at food imports contain one of the better examples

●  Last Friday the Food and Drug Administration rolled out two more of its proposed

● A new Farm Bill is still a far ways from a Rose Garden bill-signing.  With

● Today, in a surprisingly quick move, the House of Representatives passed by a vote

● Immigration reform legislation has passed the U.S. Senate, but now faces tough times in

● Today the House of Representatives failed to pass a new five-year Farm Bill by

●  USDA has shuffled its leadership deck, especially as related to international trade policy. Sue

●  A new group is being formed to help American agricultural interests better understand and

●  I attended United Fresh 2013 last week in San Diego, the annual convention and

Immigration Reform and the Farm Bill are both moving, however haltingly, on Capitol Hill. We

● Last Friday, I attended a breakfast meeting in Yakima hosted by the William D.

● Max Baucus (D/Montana) announced on Tuesday he will not run for re-election to the

● This week provided a spike of activity on three major agricultural policy fronts: food

● The May 16 deadline looms for public comments on two of the proposed rules

Our tree fruits often find themselves featured in the logos designed for special events. Some

One of the federal sequestration cuts is the suspension by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service

● This past Sunday I arrived back from Barcelona, Spain. There, I had attended the

● Sequestration is set to go into effect on March 1. I do not see

●  A powerful court decision handed down this past Friday involving Noel Canning and the

● The Subcommittee on Horticulture, Research, Biotechnology and Foreign Agricultural Service of the House Agriculture