WASHINGTON  The next farm bill will need to reflect the reality that it is not about Florida growers competing with California growers anymore, said Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA). It is about a global economy and major changes that will need to be made to make U.S. producers competitive in the marketplace.

"Freeport has been closed due to a U.S. Coast Guard order, so we are diverting scheduled shipments there to Port Everglades, Florida," Mike Mitchell, spokesman for Chiquita Brands International in Cincinnati, said on the afternoon of Sept. 21.

Mr. Mitchell referred to the port of Freeport, TX, which became an alternative banana receiving port for Chiquita after Hurricane Katrina destroyed Chiquita  and Dole's  port facilities in Gulfport, MS, on Aug. 29.

Moss Landing, CA-based Capurro Marketing LLC has hired Kevin Murphy to the newly created position of president of the company, effective Sept. 6.

The successful teaming of a New Jersey eggplant processor with a New Jersey eggplant farmer took an unexpected route through Chicago.

Last May at the annual FMI show in Chicago, New Jersey businessman Tom Hoversen approached Al Murray, director of the division of markets for the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, with one simple question: Where could he locate a New Jersey farmer growing eggplant to supply his COMARCO Products Inc. of Camden with some of the 6.5 million pounds of eggplant it processes in a year?

PHILADELPHIA  Joe Procacci hosted about 40 industry leaders at his Procacci Bros. Sales Corp./Garden State Farms facility, here, Sept. 12 to meet Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell in a fund-raising activity for the governor.

The industry guests dined in Procacci Bros.' in-house cafeteria, then gathered in the companys spacious foyer to meet with the governor, who was about 80 minutes late and missed lunch.

When Matt Romsa began working April 1 for Gourmet Trading Co., a fresh produce importer and distributor in Los Angeles, it was a big change from the life he had been leading just a year earlier.

Mr. Romsa, 27, served for two years as a volunteer health educator for the Peace Corps in the landlocked African nation of Malawi, which ranks among the world's least developed countries, according to the U.S. government.