After months of intense negotiations, a bipartisan group of eight U.S. Senators announced a sweeping immigration bill April 18 that includes a guest worker visa program vital to the floral and agricultural industries. The 844-page bill is designed to secure the border, allow foreign workers into the country while requiring employers to verify their legal status, and put 11 million people here illegally on a path to citizenship.

Independent garden center owners and managers were told by retail specialists that unless they change they probably will go out of business. “The future of many independent retail garden centers is an economic improbability,” was the glum prediction of Sid Raisch at a two-day forum Jan. 30-31 in Nashville, TN, sponsored by OFA, an association of horticultural professionals.

An expected crowd of more than 1,200 will hear Joe Theismann, former star quarterback for the Washington Redskins pro football team, deliver the keynote address for the Southern California Expo of the Fresh Produce & Floral Council on July 17 at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim.

A capacity crowd of more than 250 exhibitors is also expected; they would occupy all 195 exhibitor booth spaces on the show floor, said Carissa Mace, head of the council, in an interview. The Southern California show is the biggest event of the year for the FPFC.

Proflora, the biennial Colombian flower show, will feature exhibits, farm tours, a golf tourney, opening ceremony with the president of Colombia welcoming attendees, grower and breeder competitions, and a noted closing party.

The show will be held Oct. 2-4 at the Corferias convention center in Bogotá, Columbia. This 2011 show was held in expanded quarters in a new pavilion at Conferias, where most events and all exhibits could be housed under one roof. The new venue offers 30 percent more exhibit space and will have a technology pavilion.

The three partners who have been chosen to negotiate a contract to build-out and manage a perishables center at O’Hare airport in Chicago met with Chicago city officials April 3 and expect to open the new facility in June or July, one of the partners, Shlomo Danieli of Blooming of Beloit, told The Produce News April 19.

I recently returned from an inspiring few days at the FireSky Resort & Spa in lovely Scottsdale, AZ. I took part in the Produce Marketing Association Foundation’s Women’s Fresh Perspectives Conference on April 21-23, sponsored by the PMA Foundation for Industry Talent in partnership with the Simmons College School of Management in Boston. It was the conference’s inaugural outing.