National Grape and Wine Initiative

National Grape and Wine Initiative. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

When I was a kid growing up in a very small town all the kids had to play together. Different ages, different backgrounds and our parents just told us that we all needed to get along. I wish there was more of that in the world. The National Grape and Wine Initiative is really that kind of group...attempting to get the entire grape growing industry to work together.

SCHARLAU: The National Grape and Wine Initiative is really an umbrella organization that represents the interests of the grape and grape product processing industry throughout the U.S.

That’s Vicky Scharlau who is the current head of the Initiative who says a lot of the impetus is really to pull the industry together to benefit from research and other programs.

SCHARLAU: If we were going to try to retool and focus industry wide research - industry wide research meaning not just us, not just the west coast but the whole U.S. so that we can get more - represent more at the national level. How do we do this?

One of their top priorities is trying to get first off, Congress to get busy and sign off on a new Food, Farms and Jobs bill as well as making sure that the Specialty Crop Block Grant is included and worded correctly for the grape industry.

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