It happens every year. August is the month that every homeowner with a garden becomes a tomato farmer, and many small farmers come out of the woodwork to supply their local farmers’ markets with an abundance of round red tomatoes or even heirloom varieties.

“We call it the dog days of August and this year we are starting to experience it a little early,” said Manny Gerardo, who works the sales desk at Bernardi & Associates Inc., in Nogales, AZ — a place he has worked for 25 years.

Weis Markets launched its annual Your Neighbor’s, Our Farmer local produce program, which highlights the contributions and commitment of 13 local farmers that provide produce to some of Weis Markets’ 163 stores.

COLUMBIA, SC — Supermarket produce departments are moving an excellent volume of quality South Carolina peaches this summer, despite a cold snap that damaged early-season peaches in the state, according to Martin Eubanks, assistant commissioner for the South Carolina Department of Agriculture.

“We lost the first six weeks of the growing season due to a late-spring freeze, but we’ve had high-volume and high-quality peaches in our peak production months of July and August,” Eubanks said Aug. 1. “We will see volume falling off late this month, with some shipments into September.”

Early in my career with fresh produce retailing, I entered a management training program with a dynamic world-class 70-unit Northeastern grocery chain. My three-inch training binder held nearly 20 1.5-hour training class modules to complete in addition to my daily in-store role as a produce team leader.

The rigorous reading list added eight to 10 books on varied management and leadership topics such as, Whale Done, Fish!, and Good to Great, all read on personal time.

Regular coaching and one-on-one mentoring sessions were required as well as regular written reports.

WASHINGTON — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released on Wednesday a six-month progress report on the 2014 farm bill that includes updates on scores of hard-fought specialty crop programs.

Since the bill was signed into law on Feb. 7, Vilsack said the U.S. Department of Agriculture has made “tremendous progress” in implementing the massive legislation, such as by distributing critical disaster assistance to farmers in record time and developing new risk-management programs for producers.

CERRITOS, CA — Industry professionals packed the Sheraton Cerritos Aug. 6, here, for the annual Fresh Produce & Floral Council/City Of Hope Luncheon. This year, the Southern California Produce & Floral Division of the Food Industries Circle raised more than $250,000 for the City of Hope, one of the premier cancer-treatment centers in the United States.