Quite a bit of news is coming out of the New York Apple Association as its members gear up for their late summer and fall harvests.

Austin Fowler has seen a lot in his 20-plus years in the apple business.

Now, the vice president at Fowler Farms, a Wolcott, NY-based grower that produces a full line of apple varieties, Fowler said it is time that the industry collectively works to build awareness and consumption of apples to the benefit of all.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has imposed sanctions on five produce businesses for failing to meet contractual obligations to the sellers of produce they purchased and failing to pay reparation awards issued under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act.

The following businesses and individuals are currently restricted from operating in the produce industry:

Who is going to win the battle for apple supremacy amongst the various regions of the country? Perhaps, more importantly, can everyone be a winner in apple sales, as the growers across the country seek to gain more traction with consumers and new varieties continue to be introduced that pump extra energy into the marketplace?

For more than three decades, third-generation, family-owned Shuman Farms has been a top grower of Vidalia onions. However, while Vidalia sweet onions are what the company originally hung its hat on, the crop only runs from about mid-April to late August.

In 1941, a cartoon caption by Peter Arno appeared in The New Yorker magazine about a man watching a crashed plane explode. He was holding a roll of the blueprint plans under his arm. After seeing the plane’s destruction, he slowly walked back mumbling, “Well, back to the old drawing board.”