WASHINGTON -- It was a wild ride Thursday, May 222 on Capitol Hill, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture can now begin implementing the long- awaited farm bill after the Senate voted 82-13 to override President Bush's veto.

While debating the more than 600-page legislation, senators discovered that President Bush had vetoed the $300 billion farm bill with a missing 34-page section on trade provisions.

For the second year in a row, the last seasonal meeting of the New England Produce Council was held at Fenway Park, with a dinner party sponsored by Sunny Valley International Inc., which is based in Glassboro, NJ.

Sunny Valley's Bonnie Lundblad coordinated the May 14 dinner, which was preceded by a walking tour of historic Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. The dinner was held in a Fenway dining room overlooking the baseball field.

CALGARY, AB -- While final numbers were being calculated in the days following the 83rd annual Canadian Produce Marketing Association convention and trade show, held here May 14-16, the general consensus among attendees left little doubt that the show was an overall success.

Frank Spingola & Sons Ltd., one of Canada's larger vegetable grower-packer- shippers that is renowned for its green onions, filed an assignment in bankruptcy May 8 under Canada's Bankruptcy & Insolvency Act.

According to documents provided to The Produce News by the Fruit & Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corp., Aberback Lapointe & Associates Inc. was appointed as the trustee of the estate and will hold the first meeting of creditors May 28 at 10 a.m. in Montreal at the Superintendent Office of Bankruptcy.

It is a tall order, but the principals at AgriWorld Exchange believe their on- line trading platform will change the way the fresh fruit and vegetable industry does business.

They know this has been tried before -- and has failed fairly magnificently. But they say that times have changed and so has the industry.

Deliveries of New Zealand apple and pear varieties were already underway on both coasts in early May, and David Nelley, Oppenheimer's category director for pipfruit and pineapples, predicts a season of relatively short supply of fruit from the island nation overall compared to the past five years.

"Supplies are down considerably across the industry, but Oppenheimer will have strong volumes this year with category favorites like Royal Gala and Braeburn and rising stars like Jazz already in the market," he said.