The New Jersey Department of Agriculture takes pride in the fact that our state’s produce is as fresh as fresh gets.

That has been our marketing slogan for the past several years and will continue to be an underlying theme in the Department’s communications with consumers and retailers. But this season, our marketing message is that Jersey Fresh is consistently great, year after year. In 2013, Jersey Fresh is having “Another Great Season.”

New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher on May 21 visited farms in Cumberland and Gloucester counties to highlight the start of the Jersey Fresh growing season.  Stops included Dooley Farms and A. Pagnini Farms in Vineland and Dan Graiff Farms in Newfield.

June Jo Lee, a self-described ethnographer, told a crowd at the United Fresh Produce Association convention that "food culture" is the basis for all food trends, and the future looks bright for fresh produce.

In fact, she said that most of the important trends have increased consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables as their major component. Before delving into those trends, Lee explained the kind of work she does and how it relates to the industry.

While the entire world may be embroiled with the seemingly never-ending debate about climate change — the causes, its short- and long-term realities — our produce farmers in New Jersey simply know that for now they must deal with the effects of weather-related changes in growing conditions.

The Ecuador Trade Office in Chicago launched a campaign May 15 to extend trade agreements between Ecuador and the United States that expire July 31. Unless either the Andean Trade Promotion & Drug Eradication Act or the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences program are renewed by an act of the U.S. Congress, tariffs on imported products from Ecuador will be imposed and their prices will likely increase.

The Alaskan peony industry is enjoying a growth spurt, according to a new report by two university researchers, Patricia S. Holloway and Kathleen Buchholz of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. They stated that commercial peony growing began there in 2004, with small test plots of 20 plants. By 2012, that number had grown to 120,000. With an average yield of 10 stems per plant, the harvest is projected to be 1.2 million fresh-cut peony stems by 2015.