WASHINGTON -- The Fruit & Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee will meet for two more years to advise the U.S. Department of Agriculture on government policies that can affect how produce companies do business.

Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns renewed the charter for the four-year-old advisory committee, allowing it to operate until 2007, and is now seeking the names of nominees to help guide the U.S. Department of Agriculture on pressing issues.

Vero Beach, FL-based Seald-Sweet announced the opening of Seald-Sweet West International Inc. in Visalia, CA. In making the announcement, Seald-Sweet Senior Vice Presidents David Mixon and Mayda Sotomayor also announced that David Muse has joined the company and will immediately assume the position of vice president of operations, sales and marketing at the new location.

Several board members of the three-year-old Chicago International Produce Market indicate that the move from the historic, but highly antiquated, South Water Street Market was an extremely good one.

Rodger Wasson, president of the California Strawberry Commission since May 2002, announced his resignation from the commission, effective Sept. 15.

Mr. Wasson told The Produce News that his decision to resign was reached mutually with the executive committee of the commission and that he had alerted them at several points during his tenure that he felt the day would come when the commission would be better served by finding his replacement.

The commission is a state government agency that represents an industry of about 510 growers and 75 shippers and processors.

While reservoirs across Colorado were nearing capacity in late June and early July and easing a water shortage that in 2002 had thrown 85 percent of the state into dangerously dry conditions, not all farmers were ready to say their concerns over water have ended.

However, Mike Gillespie, snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Survey, said at a mid-May press briefing in Denver that year-to-date snow totals were closer to average than the past seven, and most water-storage facilities were at 89 percent capacity or better at that juncture.

Over much of its 95-year history, produce distributor Sun Valley Fruit Co. (previously known as Hutchinson Fruit) owned its vehicles to pick up products and make deliveries. But about a year ago, the company made a significant change and began leasing trucks through PacLease.