Officials from the Pacific Northwest remain in a wait-and-see mode to determine what effect a 20 percent tariff imposed March 11 by the government of Mexico will have upon American exports. Among the commodities affected are pears, cherries, apricots and frozen potatoes.

BOSTON -- This year's New England Produce Council Produce & Floral expo took place on April Fools Day, and most attendees and exhibitors would probably agree that the real fools were those who did not attend.

Now in its ninth year, the expo, which took place here at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center and played up April Fools Day with the theme of "Gotcha!" drew about 1,000 attendees and had 210 booths, according to Laura Sullivan, executive director of the council.

Biennial elections for the Mexican Hass Avocado Importers Association's board of directors took place March 25 at its bimonthly meeting in Irvine, CA.

Incoming Chairman Mike Browne is joined by Vice Chairman David Ruiz Vega, Secretary Giovanni Cavaletto, Treasurer Alfredo Rodriguez and Directors J. Jesus Lopez Herrera, Ed Figueroa, Aureliano Pena Esparza and Doug Meyer. Alternate board members are Ross Wileman, Mario Rivas Barrag?n, Avi Crane, Antonio Villase?or Zurita, Alejandro Alvarez del Toro, Jimmy Lotufo, Sergio Guerreo Urbina and Phil Henry.

David Dever, chief operating officer and president of Delano, CA-based Pandol Bros. Inc., and Tony DiMare, vice president of DiMare Homestead Inc. and DiMare Ruskin Inc., both in Florida, will testify Thursday, April 2, before the House of Representatives' Committee on Agriculture in Washington, DC, in what is being described as an educational and informational public hearing.

"The grape season up to now has actually been quite good," Mark Greenberg said March 13.

The good news for buyers is that with an increase in import volumes, the amount of avocados in the marketplace in the United States over the course of the 2009 calendar year is expected to be greater than last year and could potentially approach a record 1.1 million pounds, according to some projections.

Unfortunately for California avocado growers facing one of the smaller California crops in years, possibly in decades, the California share of that market will only be somewhere around 20 percent of the total. The remainder will come primarily from Mexico and Chile.