WASHINGTON -- The latest changes to the H-2A program will be too costly for employers to work through, and the Obama administration should refrain from making changes until Congress acts on AgJobs legislation, according to the National Council on Agricultural Employers.

Temecula, CA-based West Pak Avocado, a leading grower, packer and shipper of premium avocados from California, Mexico and Chile, has hired Dan Acevedo as its director of business development.

Mr. Acevedo will be responsible for increasing sales with key customers and developing new customers for the company. He will be working with all members of West Pak's sales and marketing team.

WASHINGTON -- With the clock ticking on food-safety legislation, a Senate committee held its first hearing Oct. 22 where Tom Stenzel, United Fresh Produce Association's president and chief executive officer, urged Congress not to ease food-safety mandates for small farmers, but rather to offer assistance to help them comply with the new program.

After operating as a private company for the past six years, Dole Food Co. in Westlake Village, CA, went public once again Friday, Oct. 23, with an initial public offering of 35.7 million shares at $12.50 per share.

The offering was designed to raise almost $450 million in capital for the well-known food company.

Babe' Farms in Santa Maria, CA, has added Baby Lettuce Bouquet to its packaged baby head lettuce product lineup. This latest release is a collection of gourmet baby head lettuces combined with heads of elegant blonde baby frisee, packaged in convenient clamshell containers.

"The baby lettuces and platinum frisee are an attractive and savory combination," Ande Manos of Babe' Farms sales and marketing department said in a Sept. 30 press release. "Consumers are able to create a garden- fresh salad with specialty baby lettuces and accent it with tendrils of blonde frisee."

PHILADELPHIA -- If the new Philadelphia market were placed standing on its end, it would be 50 stories taller than New York's Empire State Building.

That tidbit, shared by Sonny DiCrecchio, general manager of the Philadelphia Regional Produce Market, who led an Oct. 20 tour of the market's construction, put a real perspective on the immensity of what in 10 months will become the world's largest, most-modern produce market. Tenants could possibly move into the market as soon as August, which would be two months ahead of schedule.