The California Tomato Commission, which has not been in full operation since early spring, will suspend all operations early next year because an overwhelming majority of producers approved suspension in a recent referendum vote.

The California Department of Food & Agriculture announced Aug. 16 that assessments would continue to be collected through the remainder of the 2007-08 season but that the commission will close its doors by the Feb. 29, 2008, statutory deadline.

SALINAS, CA -- Jim Bogart of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California and two attorneys closely connected with agriculture held a forum Aug. 20 for area grower-shippers on the Social Security mismatch rule.

About 100 people attended the forum, which was held at the Richard Nutter Ag Conference Center.

PHILADELPHIA -- Like wandering nomads seeking a new home, Philadelphia's produce wholesalers have endeavored to find a new market location for the last five years. Potential sites have come and gone in a series of mostly political events. The effort to move this spring was even disrupted by a bald eagle's nest on a proposed site that was reclaimed by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

San Leandro, CA-based Bay Cities Produce Co. Inc. recently received organic certification from Agriculture Service Certified Organic.

Bay Cities is the largest exclusive restaurant purveyor in the San Francisco Bay area. The company also services institutions such as clubs, hospitals and cruise ships with a full line of fresh, frozen and prepared fruits and vegetables. Its coverage extends west to the coast, south to San Jose, north to Richmond and east to Livermore.

Sun World lnternational LLC in Bakersfield, CA, had recently begun a new program of marketing imported Minneola tangelos from Peru when the devastating earthquake on Peru's south coast struck, with an epicenter near the agricultural community of Pisco.

The company is responding to the disaster by donating a portion of the proceeds from Peruvian Minneolas to an earthquake fund to help the victims.

The year 1953 was quite eventful for Tanya Auerbach, a wife, mother, grandmother and produce industry executive who died earlier this month. It was the year she graduated from college, co-founded a garlic company and got married.

Tanya (nee Kaplan) Auerbach was born Jan. 28, 1932 in Brooklyn, NY, where she was raised. She and Irwin Auerbach founded Maurice A. Auerbach Inc. in Mr. Auerbach's mother's home in Brooklyn in 1953 as a distributor handling a single item: garlic. The company was named for Mr. Auerbach's father.