WASHINGTON -- Another attempt to secure legal farm workers for labor- starved producers failed May 20 when the Senate struck down an H-2A overhaul that was attached to the emergency war-spending bill.

On May 15, the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed by a 17-12 vote to attach the agriculture worker language to an emergency spending bill requested by the Bush administration to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Nunes Co. is merely dipping its toes into the local food movement this year, but it is taking a proactive approach and will grow, ship and sell some East Coast vegetables this summer.

"Is it a fad or is it a trend?" Tom Nunes Jr., president of the Salinas, CA-based company, which markets "Foxy" brand vegetables, asked about the local movement.

Mark Affleck, who has served as president and chief executive officer of the California Avocado Commission in Irvine, CA, for the past 20 years, has resigned from the post to pursue other interests. The commission's board of directors accepted the resignation May 15, which was effective immediately, and the resignation was announced by the commission in a May 16 press release.

Four consecutive days of high heat the week of May 12 found grower- shippers in the Salinas Valley making allowances for the heat before it hit and evaluating their crops once the heat wave passed.

On Friday, May 16, the heat registered as high as 98 degrees in Salinas, CA.

Andy Cumming, president and managing principal of King City, CA-based Metz Fresh, told The Produce News Wednesday, May 21, that he didn't experience a big impact from the heat. Knowing that weather reports had called for the heat wave, Metz made sure everything was well irrigated, he said.

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.