On Aug. 29, the day following Hurricane Irene's determined scathing path from North Carolina north along the eastern coastline, most of the Northeast agricultural industry was just beginning to assess the damage that the winds and heavy rains caused to crops and business in general.

Even after the storm had weakened to a tropical storm over New Jersey, it continued to deliver winds strong enough to blow fruit off trees and flood farmlands.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s new countrywide import alert for Mexican papayas is likely to send retailers scrambling for product, devastate Mexican producers and raise troubling questions about FDA tests that found Salmonella on papayas from different regions of the country.

An outbreak that has caused at least 100 people across 23 states to become ill with Salmonella Agona started the series of events that led to a July 23 recall by McAllen, TX-based Agromod Produce Inc. of its papayas distributed nationwide and Canada.

Truck rates were high all summer, but the supply-demand situation never reached the critical stages that were predicted last fall.

In the pages of The Produce News, as well as in other publications, a dire situation was predicted for this summer last spring. Fuel rates had topped $4 per gallon, and the unstable political situation in the oil-rich countries in the Middle East pointed to even higher rates as the year progressed.

In an attempt to overturn a U.S. Food & Drug Administration “Import Alert” that effectively prevents Del Monte Fresh Produce N.A. Inc. from importing cantaloupes from its Guatemalan supplier, the produce company filed a lawsuit Aug. 22 against the federal agency in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

JENNIFER FANCHER is the new director of marketing for Growers Express, the farmer-owned and integrated grower-packer-shipper of premium-quality fresh fruits and vegetables, including those marketed under the “Green Giant Fresh” label.