12/07/05 Ho,Ho,Ho! Imported food must go

Food from exotic locations has always been a part of holiday entertaining but what price are we really paying to have those South American strawberries in December. With our supermarkets now more international than LaGuardia, featuring olives from Greece, artichoke hearts from Spain, coffee from Ethiopia and Australian lamb. US economists are worried about the effects these imposts will pose given our dependency on agriculture to balance trade deficits. CAFTA, coupled with our insatiable appetite for out of season food could come back to bite us. I wonder how much longer we will remain the world's largest Ag exporter when "perceived" Red White and Blue co-ops like Sunkist now import oranges. Oh yes, I know we would buy American grown foods if we could easily identify them, but I wonder if that will become a reality when retailers fear country of origin labeling, given one of their fastest growing segments in the grocery store is the import category. http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109987062938867100,00.html