Today was our FBGA marketing seminar. I think it was well received by the growers.

My take on the meeting was Florida is well positioned in the short term for continued success. The long term (5 years) is not as great. Our prices will probably decline slightly over the next few years but nothing we can't live with. Our market window has probably let us put more lower quality fruit into the stores. As supply goes up there will be more pressure to pack a higher quality product. That's not a bad thing.

Food safety and high quality need to go hand and hand.

There was a lot of talk about higher per acre production. This will be a challenge. We are in Florida, low chill and very high disease pressures normally limit our production.

Overall I am very optimistic. Of course time will tell.