Edible Plants Top Nursery Sales and Fruit & Vegatable Imports Fall
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.
**Edible plants remain top sellers at California plant nurseries, where business surged at the start of the pandemic, slackened for a while but has picked up again.
One Ventura County nursery operator says customers wanted vegetables in March, then demand focused on fruit trees, but now rose bushes are starting to sell.
A Stanislaus County nursery operator says he's sold out of citrus trees but sales of ornamental plants have been less robust.
**CME block cheddar prices made history twice this spring, the first staging an unprecedented collapse as restaurants and schools were forced to close in an effort to stem the spread of Covid-19.
Following that collapse, CME block cheese prices have now climbed more than 150% in less than two months.
Daily Dairy Report analyst Betty Berning tells milkbusiness.com, the recovery in restaurant demand is still in its infancy, leading some to question the cheese price rally.
https://www.milkbusiness.com/article/demand-for-cheese-keeps-building?mkt/
**The contraction of U.S. foodservice business in April because of COVID-19 apparently contributed to a steep fall in U.S. fruit and vegetable imports.
According to thepacker.com, new USDA trade numbers show U.S. imports of fresh vegetables in April were down 25% from March and off 6.5% from April 2019.
Imports of both fresh and frozen fruit in April were $1.27 billion, off 23% from March and down 17% from April 2019.
https://www.thepacker.com/article/us-imports-down-sharply-april?mkt/
