Pears At PMA

Pears at PMA. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Each year the Producers Marketing Associations annual show brings out producers from all over. Kevin Moffitt, President at Pear Bureau Northwest just got back and gives us a rundown.

MOFFITT: We just finished up a great PMA in Atlanta. There were over 18-thousand people at this show. We had a booth again at this show. It’s very active for us. We see many of our domestic retail contacts. We get a chance to talk to them about the crop, make sure we’re on track for promotions and just reacquaint ourselves with old friends.

But this show is also about international produce sales as well.

MOFFITT: We see our top international markets. Mexico; a big contingent from Mexico, retail groups from Canada, some of our newest emerging markets like Russia and India had quite a number of people visiting us as well as Brazil, the Middle East, Central America so it’s really quite an active show for us.

There was once topic that was talked about a lot at this years show.

MOFFITT: Certainly there were a lot of workshops and discussions going on in the hallways. FTA’s are a big topic of discussion in a positive way. We of course don’t sell any pears right now - we’re not allowed in Korea however we feel that the Columbia and Panama FTA’s will be quite a bonus for us starting this year.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.