2016 SE Regional Fruit & Vegetable Conference announces record attendance

The 2016 SE Regional Fruit & Vegetable Conference and Tradeshow announced it welcomed more than 3,500 members of the fruit and vegetable industry in Savannah, Georgia during the conference held Jan. 7-10. The trade show saw a 10 percent increase in attendees from its 2015 meeting, which welcomed just over 3,200 people.

The SE Regional Conference is coordinated and sponsored by the Georgia Fruit & Vegetable Growers Association (GFVGA) and the Georgia Peach Council.  The year 2016 marks the 15th anniversary for this conference.

The conference offered 13 different commodity and production sessions totaling more than 70 hours of education.  Session topics included specific commodities like blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, organic production, muscadines, peaches, strawberries and vegetables, and also vital operation topics like business operations, food safety and roadside markets.

On Saturday, Jan. 9, the SE Regional Conference held an awards breakfast to recognize local fruit and vegetable industry members who received honors in 2015. Award recipients included:

• The Mr. Peach Award — Dan Horton, University of Georgia professor of entomology and departmental extension coordinator.
• Donnie H. Morris Award for Excellence in Extension — Jeff Cook, University of Georgia Extension agriculture and natural resources agent
• Environmental Stewardship Award — Lewis Taylor Farms

Miss America 2016, Betty Cantrell, also attended the awards breakfast as the keynote speaker.   Miss America’s platform is “Healthy Children, Strong America.”  Hailing from Warner Robins, Georiga, Cantrell says she knows the value of agriculture to a community first hand, and that fruits and vegetables are the key to reducing childhood obesity.

To close the conference, Charles Hall, GFVGA executive director hosted a roundtable event open to all industry members. According to Hall, GFVGA will use comments and discussion from this roundtable meeting to form its 2016 association strategy and goals. Topics discussed included how growers can address sustainability and interpreting the Food Safety Modernization Act.  There was also discussion on the GFVGA developing a written position on the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s) in the industry.

The 2017 SE Regional event will be held once again in Savannah, Georgia next Jan. 5-8.