Meet FGN’s new managing editor

Although this is my first column for Fruit Growers News, I’m hoping many of you recognize my name or face. Before becoming the managing editor for FGN and sister publication Vegetable Growers News, I spent more than two decades at The Packer newspaper.

Perhaps I’ve visited your farm – over the years, I toured Michigan fruit and vegetable operations, New Jersey blueberry and other fruit farms and vegetable fields, California grape vineyards and stone fruit orchards, Vidalia onion fields, potato production areas in Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Wisconsin, onion and vegetable fields in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and around California’s Salinas Valley, aka the Salad Bowl of the World.

As a writer and editor at my previous job, my ultimate role was to inform retailers, foodservice operators and others who buy and sell fresh produce about current industry trends, crop conditions and numerous other factors that affect prices, quality and availability of fresh fruits and vegetables. Sometimes those market factors were a direct result of decisions made by you, the growers, but increasingly it seems that many of those decisions aren’t yours to make any more.

Mother Nature has always been a partner in the growing process, a partnership every grower agrees to whenever a seed or tree is planted. Lately, it seems she has been hell-bent to undermine your work, with storms, wildfires, droughts and other natural occurrences. Dwindling water supplies and lack of rainfall in major growing areas is not a new development for specialty agriculture, but the situation is becoming dire in some areas.

Mainstream news sources seem to be taking more of a role in alerting the greater population about the reality of dwindling water availability for everyone, not just agribusinesses. One of the most macabre news stories in recent months surely drove the message home to many Southwest U.S. residents: the water levels in Lake Mead continue to recede, uncovering what’s been hidden at the bottom of the lake. Two bodies have been revealed by the receding water, and officials expect more will be found – Lake Mead water levels are forecast to drop another 12 feet by this fall.

Surely, more than a few of the millions of people who depend on Lake Mead for municipal water will think twice before watering their lawn for hours or frequently washing their vehicle. It’s one thing to accept the possibility of human remains in the lake (it’s close to Las Vegas, for one thing), but thinking of the body count every time you fill a glass or use tap water to cook requires a level of introspection many would want to avoid.

Other challenges that FGN and VGN readers see as growing obstacles include labor availability. In some cases, the evolution of technology is mitigating the lack of labor, and the cost of adding that technology is becoming more affordable. Whether it’s automatic harvesting or planting equipment that cuts the need for workers in a field, or packinghouse equipment that reduces the need for hands on the packing line, options to address concerns about lack of labor are becoming a reality for more fruit and vegetable growers.

Many of these issues have been discussed at fruit and vegetable field days across the country this spring, and continue to be a topic at summer and fall events. While it’s not feasible for us to be at all local, regional or state events at FGN and VGN, we’re working with the academic community, from college of agriculture professors and horticulture departments to numerous Extension agents in fruit and vegetable orchards and fields to help us keep you informed of the issues that affect your businesses.

– Chris Koger, managing editor, Fruit Growers News; Contact Koger at ckoger@greatamericanpublish.com.