CITRUSDAL, South Africa — The South African citrus deal will kick off with outstanding quality and an increase in volume over 2011 to meet rising demand, according to the Western Cape Citrus Producers Forum, based here, which exports all production to the United States.

Colorful Harvest, one of the fastest growing produce companies on the West Coast, is holding an online auction of a Musical Harvest strawberry guitar to benefit the Academy of Country Music's charity Lifting Lives. The custom-built guitar was signed by award-winning country artists at the recent ACM Awards show in Las Vegas, including Scotty McCreery (ACM 2012 new artist of the year), The Eli Young Band (ACM 2012 song of the year), Sarah Evans (2011 Country Music Association female vocalist of the year) and many others.

For the first time ever, growers, shippers and suppliers from the Salinas Valley will exhibit their products together at the Produce Marketing Association’s Fresh Summit convention this October in Anaheim, CA.

The Grower-Shipper Association of Central California is serving as the umbrella organization for its members and will attempt to duplicate the success it has had with its “Salad Bowl of the World” pavilion concept that it debuted at the 2011 United Fresh Produce Association convention and repeated this year.

Produce Alliance LLC, which specializes in helping member businesses grow within the produce industry, announced May 24 the addition of three new employees to its headquarters office in Nashville, TN.

Chicago native SCOTT BAGAN recently joined Produce Alliance’s sales team.

Tony Anderson of Anderson Produce and the Texas Melon Exchange in Edinburg, TX, knows people heard about the hailstorms that hit the Texas crop earlier this season. What he hopes is that they have also heard about the crop’s remarkable recovery.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service announced June 5 the eradication of European grapevine moth from Fresno, Mendocino, Merced and San Joaquin counties in California and the removal of restrictions on exports of EGVM host commodities, including stone fruit and table grapes, from those counties to Mexico.