WASHINGTON -- While food-safety recalls and third-party audits may be top issues at this year's United Fresh 2009 convention in Las Vegas, the networking opportunities still offer value for attendees during tough economic times, according to organizers.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. exporters are hoping for a quick resolution to a trucking dispute with Mexico that has resulted in retaliatory tariffs affecting $900 million in U.S. agricultural products, but they don't expect the issue to be resolved during President Obama's trip to Mexico the week of April 13.

Arroyo Grande, CA-based Produce Careers Inc. has partnered with on-line recruitment service AgCareers.com in a move that will extend the reach of AgCareers.com's Compensation Benchmark Review, an extensive agribusiness salary survey.

Produce Careers is an executive search firm for the produce, food and wine industries. The recruitment company targets "middle to senior management," said David Stornetta, a principal of the company.

Eric Spell, president of AgCareers.com, said that his company serves employers and employees in North America.

While onions have been grown for generations in biblical proportions by the Griggs of Quincy, WA, it's only recently that family roots have gone in a completely different -- but still faith-based -- direction.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released its April orange crop forecast for the 2008-09 season, slightly reducing the total orange estimate by 400,000 boxes, to 157.6 million boxes.

John Gary Stanger, a prominent Idaho potato shipper and marketer as well as a founding partner in Wada Farms Marketing Group in Idaho Falls, ID, died April 9 at his home in Idaho Falls from bone marrow cancer. He was 70.

Born March 3, 1939, in Idaho Falls, Mr. Stanger attended the University of Idaho and graduated from Brigham Young University in 1961 with a degree in business. After graduating, Mr. Stanger joined his father in the family potato business, Idaho Bonded Produce, which by the mid-1970s had become one of the larger potato-shipping warehouses in Idaho.