U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack has designated 16 New Jersey counties as natural disaster areas to assist farms that suffered losses due to excessive heat and drought during the 2010 growing season.

Farmers in New Jersey's Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Salem, Somerset, Sussex and Warren counties may now access federal assistance programs for damages to their crops from the severe weather they endured.

PHILADELPHIA - Eugene Bailey, executive director of the Diamond State Port Corp. in Wilmington, DE, was named the recipient of the 13th annual Friend of Chile Award Nov. 18. The Chilean & American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia gives the honor. Arturo Fermandois, Chilean ambassador to the United States, presented the award.

First lady Michelle Obama hopes to donate at least 6,000 salad bars in schools in the next three years under a new initiative, Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools, launched Nov. 22, that teams the federal government with the produce industry to improve nutrition in school-age children.

At Riverside Elementary School in Miami, the first lady spent nearly an hour talking with children at the first school to receive donated salad bar equipment under the new initiative.

Texas citrus growers have voluntarily placed a temporary hold on shipping to other states as they deal with an outbreak of sweet orange scab first reported Oct. 12 in The Produce News.

Texas growers voluntarily halted citrus shipments to other states Nov. 4, and the ban was to be lifted Nov. 19 but has been extended indefinitely.

Ray Prewett, president of Texas Citrus Mutual in Mission, TX, said that the voluntary quarantine was a good-faith effort by the Texas industry to investigate the infestation further before potentially putting other states at risk.

WASHINGTON — The produce industry is pulling support for a food-safety bill slated for a Nov. 29 vote after news that a compromise had been reached allowing certain small producers to be exempted from the federal food-safety requirements.

The Senate failed to vote on food-safety legislation Nov. 18, but an agreement was reached to vote on the bill Nov. 29 once lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving holiday break. The vote on S. 510 is expected to be held Monday, Nov. 29, in the evening.

WASHINGTON -- The United Fresh Produce Association Foundation joined first lady Michelle Obama Nov. 22 at the Riverside Elementary School in Miami as a new coalition of public and private sector partners launched the Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative.

The new initiative builds on the pioneering work done by United Fresh to spearhead public health attention on the power of school salad bars as an effective strategy for increasing children's consumption of fruits and vegetables.