It was a difficult growing season and a long Red River Valley potato harvest season.

“We have excellent quality,” said Paul Dolan, manager of Associated Potato Growers, Inc., located in Grand Forks, ND. “We struggled but the rains were definitely needed at harvest time” to soften the valley’s hard soil to help harvest the region’s potatoes without crop damage.

A booming Peruvian onion deal and growing popularity of its niche “baby” Vidalia onions have made this a busy time of year for Herndon Farms LLC of Lyons, GA.

“We want to play to our strength and our strength is what we do in the field,” said Herndon Sales Manager John Williams. “We can be the eyes and ears for our customers on the ground and in the field as an importer from Peru. There’s no third party involved and we have the same people monitor the quality as we do with Vidalia.”

In mid-November, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association held its third annual Fall Harvest, which saw members of its organization come to its nation's capital to talk about some key produce industry issues.

CPMA President Ron Lemaire said there were three main topics on the table: the Safe Food for Canadians Act; establishing a single produce license administrator; and creating some type of bankruptcy priority position for produce sellers similar to the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act Trust in the United States.

Grimaldi’s, Grimaldi’s, Grimaldi’s — around Tampa Bay, FL, that is all anyone hears about lately.

Grimaldi’s is a legendary Brooklyn, NY, pizzeria that over the last few years has expanded across the South and West, with operations based in Arizona and more than 30 locations in California, Texas, South Carolina and a half-dozen new stores in Florida - three of the most recent in Tampa Bay, thus leading to the talk on the streets.

Tod Parkinson spent years as a salesman for Valliwide Organic. In 2010, he left the sales desk to return to the fields and farm land that he leased.

The shift from sales to farming also marked a shift from profits for the Reedley, CA-based sales company to building the first high school in the Huruma slum in Nairobi, Kenya.

What prompted the move was Parkinson’s involvement in a nonprofit and a small group study of Rick Warren’s best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life. The nonprofit, When I Grow Up, partners with local leaders.

The Produce Marketing Association announced Dec. 2 in an email to its membership that its former president, Bob Carey, died Friday, Nov. 29, at the age of 82.