California Avocado Harvest and Avian Influenza Spreading
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.
**California avocado growers are expected to harvest more than 300 million pounds this season.
That supply is augmented by imported avocados from Mexico.
Last week, those imports were briefly suspended after threats in that country against a U.S. agricultural official.
The California Avocado Commission urged Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack to maintain strict import standards but said they “have no interest in disrupting the supply of Mexican avocados.”
**State and federal officials have killed tens of thousands of broiler chickens and turkeys on poultry farms in Indiana and Kentucky, and backyard flocks in three other states, to fight outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza.
According to www.agriculture.com, nine cases of bird flu have been confirmed in the eastern U.S. in less than two weeks.
Authorities believe it is being spread by migratory waterfowl.
www.agriculture.com/news/business/nine-cases-of-lethal-bird-flu-in-eastern-us
**The USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service released the results of the 2021 Hemp Acreage and Production Survey in the agency’s National Hemp Report.
Planted area for industrial hemp grown in the open for all uses totaled just over 54,000 acres.
The area harvested for all utilizations totaled 33,480 acres, and the VALUE of U.S. hemp grown in the open totaled $712 million.
NASS Administrator Hubert Hamer says, the data will help guide USDA in supporting domestic hemp production and help producers make decisions.
