 Sonia Jimenez
Deputy Administrator
The strength of
the Specialty Crops Program (SCP) has long been our outstanding employees and our
strong relationships with the industry we serve. As SCP’s new Deputy
Administrator, I am honored to be part of the SCP team and to serve you, our stakeholders. USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue recently announced
many organizational changes across the Department that will further USDA’s service
to American agriculture. The
Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is now home to the former Grain, Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards
Administration (GIPSA). For SCP,
this change will result in the Perishable Agricultural Commodities
Act (PACA) Division moving to new AMS fair trade practices program. Improvements like this will provide a unified
USDA presence for our customers and the services we provide them.
SCP’s mission
remains providing competitive, efficient, and transparent marketing of
specialty crops to help buyers and sellers of all sizes in the U.S. produce industry. To remain of value to you, we know that we
must evolve to reflect your changing needs.
Our Specialty
Crops Inspection (SCI) Division has been providing USDA quality assurance
and food safety services to the entire specialty crops industry for 100
years. Of course, there have been many
changes to our fresh and processed product services since 1917, and we are now
seeking to map our course for the upcoming years. At the United Fresh Public Policy Conference
in September, we announced that we are setting up a Fresh Produce Industry
Inspection Working Group that will engage our customers to help us provide the
most relevant, valuable, and cost-effective services to meet the specialty
crops industry’s marketing needs. Take
a look at the article in this newsletter on how you can take part in the Working Group.
Also in this
issue, you’ll learn how SCP’s Market News and inspection services responded
during this hurricane season, and how SCP is using new technology to provide
you with quick, digital access to the Specialty Crops Market News National
Retail Report.
AMS staff will be at the Produce Marketing Association’s (PMA) Fresh Summit, October 19-21, 2017, in New
Orleans. Please stop by room #344 on
Friday, October 20 from 1-4 p.m. to visit with me and SCI Division personnel;
and stop by our booth #5957 any time during the show to visit with us.
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 Christopher
Purdy
Associate Deputy Administrator
If you’re ready to talk about how AMS
can continue to improve its service to you for the future, AMS is listening!
Industry leaders suggested AMS should
form a working group to discuss how we can improve our fresh produce terminal
market inspection services to provide you the best customer service possible. So, that is what we are doing: we are forming
the Fresh Produce Industry Inspection Working Group and looking for volunteers
to give us input about how we can strengthen our service offerings and business
processes to meet current and future market needs. Let’s discuss business challenges,
solicit ideas and generate recommendations.
 Dana Stewart
Specialty Crops inspection Division
As
recovery from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma progresses, the AMS Specialty Crops
Program (SCP) continues to review its “first-response” activities to ensure we
are ready to effectively respond to future disaster relief efforts. In
the aftermath of the hurricanes in Texas and Florida, SCP quickly brought food
safety inspection services and market news information up-to-speed almost
immediately.
“Our
team was ready and rose to the challenge. While addressing the dire needs
of their own families and neighbors, they returned to flooded offices and duty
stations to serve our customers. As a division, we identified and deployed
additional resources to the affected areas to ensure continued service
delivery,” Lorenzo A. Tribbett, Director, Specialty Crops Inspection (SCI) Division, said of the determination and
dedication of SCI team members who were impacted by the storms.
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Melissa Reeves
National Retail Manager, Specialty Crops Market News
Terry Long
Director, Specialty Crops
Market News
Excerpt is reprinted with
permission from Blueprints Magazine, July 2017
How do retailers set
their produce prices? Is there a way to know if stores will have specific items
on special? Is there somewhere that shows all these specials in one place, with
a price distribution list of produce items?
Could a produce shipper capitalize on having this type of information?
The
answer to all of these questions is yes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) Specialty Crops Market News service provides this information to
the public regularly through reporters who track over 400 supermarket chains
with more than 30,000 individual stores.
The National Retail Report – Specialty Crops is published weekly, giving buyers, sellers, and consumers access to the
same information at the same time. Retail reporting completes the “third leg of
the stool” for Market News, as the agency also tracks major wholesale terminal
markets, and markets at shipping point for a wide range of specialty
crops.
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