Dana Thomas, president of Bloomington, CA-based Index Fresh, has announced the appointment of Nate Pidduck to the newly created position of food-safety coordinator.

Index Fresh's initiative represents perhaps the first food-safety coordinator for growers in the avocado industry. As food-safety coordinator, Mr. Pidduck will be responsible for ensuring that food- safety criteria are met by Index Fresh's suppliers. He is working with Index Fresh to prepare a manual that will help in simplifying the process.

Randolph Breschini, who joined Salinas, CA-based Growers Express as its president in August 2004, is no longer with the company, according to a recent report issue by The Blue Book.

The report was confirmed by another source in the Salinas area who wished not to be identified. Attempts to reach Growers Express for comment by deadline for the June 12 issue of The Produce News were unsuccessful, as were attempts to reach Mr. Breschini at home.

Upwards of 200 farmers on Colorado's Eastern Plains are facing the 2006 growing season with limited water resources or, in some cases, with no resources at all following the June 3 rejection of an emergency augmentation plan proposed by the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District.

But while estimates place the losses at more than $1 million as a result of the ruling, some of the farmers are implementing their own augmentation programs in an effort to keep their crops irrigated this year.

Need to know the weather in Chile? Got it. What about up-to-date growing conditions for strawberries? Got that, too.

Global Berry Farms, marketer of the "Naturipe" brand, has launched its new web site -- www.globalberryfarms.com -- designed to provide its customers with a "one-stop shop" for fresh berries. Allowing access to real-time harvesting and shipping information, which has traditionally been largely unavailable via the web, will enable faster dissemination of necessary resources in a market with increasing consumer demand.

Leaf lettuce continued its dominant grip in Monterey County for the fourth straight year as shown in the Monterey County Crop Report 2005, which was released June 6.

The crop report -- compiled by the Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner's office -- put the county's production value at nearly $3.3 billion for 2005, the fourth time the county has exceed $3 billion in gross production value. That value was an 11 percent climb over 2004 -- which was 3 percent greater than 2003 -- with more than 40 crops exceeding $1 million in production value.