"It looks as though, all things considered, we are likely to end up with a normal harvest in total," Tom Tjerandsen, manager of the California Fresh Apricot Council, said with regard to the 2005 California apricot crop.

Earlier in the season, it had appeared that the harvest would yield a "greater-than-normal volume of apricots this year. But the crop potential "has been slowly chipped away because of principally weather-related issues, he said May 6.

SALINAS, CA - Mann Packing Co., based here, and Livingston, CA-based Consolidated Farms are teaming up to form California Fresh Farms LLC, a joint venture that will take fresh-cut sweet potatoes to the nation's restaurants and supermarkets.

SALINAS, CA -- Much has happened to Rory Cornell in the year since he graduated from California Polytechnic Institute with a degree in agribusiness marketing -- most of it good.

Upon graduation last June, Mr. Cornell landed a job at Coastal Berry Co. in Watsonville, CA, as a "cooler liaison." But Dole acquired Coastal and Mr. Cornell was laid off in November.

Welcome to the unpredictable world of agriculture.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., the owner of A&P supermarkets, hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. to find a buyer for its Canadian grocery-store business, a sale that could raise more than $1 billion.

This announcement, combined with its latest financial results and a planned major restructuring, led to sharply higher stock prices the week of May 9-13.

A&P plans to sell A&P Canada, divest itself of its Midwest operations, and concentrate on its core operations in the broad corridor from Connecticut to Washington, DC.

With legislation just introduced that would repeal mandatory country-of-origin labeling for meat, members of the produce industry wonder if their products can be far behind.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) is planning to introduce a comprehensive bill in the coming weeks that would add produce and seafood to the list of commodities no longer controlled by the mandatory COOL law.

While driving to a store, I noticed that the needle on my vehicles fuel gauge was flirting with empty. After challenging it for a few more miles, I decided to pull into a gas station and force myself to buy some liquid gold in order to continue motoring forward.

Once at the pump, I noticed a receipt sticking out of the slot from the previous customer. He or she probably left it there to avoid the possibility of a sudden heart attack from observing the results.