The Center for Produce Safety hopes that $500,000 in new research will help the produce industry gain a better understanding of ways to prevent contamination during production.

The California-based center was launched in response to the 2006 E. coli outbreak and funded with $2 million from the Produce Marketing Association and another $2 million from Taylor Farms. The California Department of Food & Agriculture and the University of California also pledged financial resources for the center, which is housed at the University of California-Davis.

Nunhems, the vegetable seed business of Bayer CropScience, announced plans to invest $20 million in the expansion of its Parma, ID, facility. According to Joachim Schneider, head of the BioScience Business Unit, which is based at the Bayer CropScience offices in Monheim, Germany, the expansion is soundly based.

"This investment lays the foundation for the sustainable growth of our vegetable seed business in the United States and beyond," Dr. Schneider said at the fall 2008 groundbreaking ceremony in Parma.

WASHINGTON -- Tomato business owners may feel vindicated when they read a new report documenting the flaws in the federal government's response to this summer's Salmonella saintpaul outbreak.

The 32-page report, Breakdown: Lessons to Be Learned from the 2008 Salmonella Saintpaul Outbreak, represents an in-depth review of missteps and miscommunication that may have extended the outbreak that caused illnesses in more than 1,400 people nationwide.

NOGALES, AZ -- "We have heard every bad economic piece of news that is to be heard. Some of them are even true, unfortunately," said John Pandol, vice president of special projects for Pandol Bros. Inc. in Delano, CA, and chairman of the grape committee of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, here, who moderated a retail and foodservice panel discussion held Nov. 14 during the 40th annual Nogales Produce Convention & Invitational Golf Tournament.

"PEI potato acreage is down this year," said Bob Harding, general manager of the Prince Edward Island Potato Board in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. "Acreage is reported at 92,500 this year, compared to 96,000 acres a year ago."

The Sayre fire in Sylmar in Los Angeles County that began Friday, Nov. 14 destroyed a satellite office of the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner's office.

The county's pest management offices (trailers) there that housed activity for pest detection, pest exclusion, produce quality and pesticide regulation were destroyed, and a pesticide storage shed was gutted, according to Ken Pellman, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner's office.