FPFC President Carissa Mace and Margo Robinson of Augustine Ideas.

Seems there’s nothing like a farm bill year to get people focused on exactly how the federal and state governments spend the billions allocated annually in federal funds to enhance agriculture’s role as a leading economic engine in the nation.

FRESNO, CA -- Bill Lewis and Shani McKinney have joined Crown Jewels Produce. "As South American managing partner, [Mr. Lewis] has opened an office in Santiago and will help develop the company's new import program from Chile, Peru and Brazil," according to a company press release. Ms. McKinney "will be working from the Fresno main office with import operations as well as foreign and domestic sales."

Many people misunderstand the National Watermelon Association’s queen program. The queen program is not a beauty pageant, it is a job that requires more than beauty — the young women are intelligent, well-spoken and well-trained in representing the watermelon industry, as the annual Syngenta-sponsored queen-training weekend showed recently in Naples, FL.

The NWA has nine chapters representing watermelon-producing states. Each of those chapters has a queen who serves 12 months. From that group, one is selected to spend another year representing the industry as national queen.

California Vegetable Specialties, a major grower of Belgian-style endive, recently dedicated a new 20,000-square-foot chicory root cold-storage facility next to its grow out operation in Rio Vista, CA. Designed by Integrated Structures of Berkeley, CA, this state-of-the-art facility could save the company up to 75 percent in energy costs, and repay the cost of the entire facility in 17 years.

Utah Onions, a provider of premium red, yellow, white and sweet onions, hired RICHARD PAZDERSKI as director of business development, effective April 30. He will be responsible for directing all new business development activities for the company.