STATEN ISLAND, NY — With most fresh produce items throughout the Eastern Seaboard coming on early this year — thanks to an unusually warm winter and early spring — La Bella Marketplace was offering a good variety of New York state items to shoppers in mid-June.

“Our greenhouses in Canada and in the U.S. are currently producing and will continue through October due to the warm weather and maximum sunlight we are now enjoying,” Nancy Pickersgill, event planning and communication manager for Mastronardi/Sunset Produce in Leamington, ON, told The Produce News. “We are heading into the sweet-spot of the season with our gourmet greenhouse vegetables. Our award-winning Zima has been a hit again this year, as is our new Sweet Twister peppers, which are currently sold out.

Ready Pac is encouraging on-the-go usage of its Bistro Bowl Salad line by rewarding fans via the Ready Pac Bistro Bowl Salads On-the-Go Challenge social media contest. The program kicked off July 2 and runs through July 27.

WASHINGTON — Congress may be out of town for the Fourth of July recess, but staffers on the House Agriculture Committee are busy drafting a version of the 2012 farm bill that may look dramatically different from the bill (S. 3240) the Senate passed last month.

On July 11, The House Agriculture Committee is scheduled to begin marking up the five-year bill, a draft of which may be circulated as early as this week.

A summer-long national marketing campaign that challenges summer fitness fans and recreational enthusiasts to consider the banana as one of nature's best energy sources has its roots in a new study equating America's best-selling fruit with the most popular sports drinks.

AgraQuest, a Davis, CA-based global supplier of innovative biological pest-management solutions based on natural microorganisms, has been acquired by Bayer CropScience in a deal valued at close to $500 million.