Movement for Mexican-grown tomatoes this winter has been “very good across all parts of the country, and prices have been … above the minimum until this past week” when volume increased, said Joe Bernardi, president of Bernardi & Associates Inc. in Nogales, AZ, Feb. 8. “Now we have come into our typical heavy February volume, and prices are at or near the minimum on pretty much all the tomato items. We continue to have good distribution around the country. That is where we are currently.”

But there are uncertainties ahead, he said. “Going forward, we have the uncertainty of what is going to happen with the new suspension agreement.”

If the new agreement goes into effect on March 4, as anticipated, there are questions about “how it is going to be implemented,” Mr. Bernardi said. “We have that uncertainty coming up, and that is causing a lot of concern around the industry. Just how is it going to take place? We don’t know what the answers are to all the questions right now.”

Joe Bernardi and Manny GerardoImplementation of a new tomato suspension agreement would “cause enough anxiety and concern if it were going to happen between seasons,” he said. “But to have it happen right in the middle of the deal I think is creating more anxiety than there would be in any other situation.” The acreage for the season is already planted and can’t be adjusted now for the remainder of the current season, regardless of how new reference prices may influence demand.

For the 2013-14 season, growers can be expected to adjust their plantings based on how much they expect to be able to sell at the mandated higher floor prices, “so I would expect to see, after this year, less acreage in tomatoes,” Mr. Bernardi said. But the shadehouses in which most of the tomatoes in Mexico are grown have already been built. If some of them are not used for tomatoes next season, then growers will use them for other products. “I would expect to see more bells and cucumbers and eggplant and everything else,” he said.

Of the various producing regions that grow tomatoes for the U.S. market, only Mexico will be bound by the minimum prices in the suspension agreement. Canada, for example, will not.

Mr. Bernardi feels that the fighting among the different producing areas is counterproductive and unnecessarily costly. “I’ve been saying this for years and years and years,” he said. “We spend more time and money battling each other instead of increasing consumption and promoting our product to its full potential.” The tomato is “a good product, whether it is grown here or whether it is grown in Florida.”

Mr. Bernardi thinks that the tomato industry could take a lesson from the avocado industry. “You see the avocado guys that have taken product from multiple countries and brought it all together, and they are continuing to thrive,” he said. By not doing something similar, “I think that is where [the people in] the tomato industry — all of us — are missing the boat.”

Bernardi & Associates, which has branch offices in California, Texas and Florida, is a full-line broker in the tomato and vegetable deal. “With our multiple offices covering all the entry points for Mexico, and also covering Florida and covering Northern California, I think it puts us in a unique position to be able to provide our customers the best of whatever they want,” Mr. Bernardi said. “If they choose a Mexican vine-ripe, we are in a position to handle that for them. If they choose to want a domestically grown mature green, we are in a position to handle that for them. So I think we are uniquely qualified to fulfill a lot of customers’ tomato needs.”