Just six years after making the decision to grow organic onions in addition to the conventional onions it already produced, Yerington, NV-based Peri & Sons Farms considers the venture a great success, according to a Jan. 17 company press release. Starting with just three acres of organic onion production in 2006, today Peri & Sons’ organic onion acreage has increased hundreds of times over.

The Republic of Lithuania port of Klaipeda and the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding Jan. 20 that promises to open Philadelphia ports to the European and Asian shipping trade via the ice-free port of Klaipeda, the Lithuanian port city on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.

Pure Hot House Foods Inc. recently hired 10-year greenhouse veteran MARINA DAVIDSON as the director of procurement for the company, effective Jan. 16.

On the heels of significant growth in 2011, Colorado-based Farm Fresh Direct LLC has set its sights on more expansion in 2012, starting with the Jan. 1 hiring of produce industry veteran Mike Harmon.

“There are a few new and exciting things going on here this year,” Scott Mabs, director of marketing for Homegrown Organic Farms in Porterville, CA, said. “We are bringing on a new blueberry ranch in Oregon this year. We’ve been doing California blueberries for a number of years, and it has grown into a significant program, but once the northwest movement started, around the end of June, California would shut down. A few years ago we purchased this ranch of about 400 acres in Jefferson, south of Portland.”