They meet again

The USDA's Fruit and Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee will meet again in January, and the agency's has just published notice of the date and location for the meeting. I've seen every meeting of the committee, and I believe all who serve on it do the industry a real service and take their jobs seriously. The USDA does a nice job of educating the committee on their programs, even if it does seem that they use the committee as political cover for user fee increases. One topic for the January meeting is fee increases for PACA, in addition to other planned discussions about immigration, the farm bill and food safety.