Produce Groups Unite to Emphasize Need to Stabilize Market
April 10, 2020 
This past week, United Fresh and a number of industry partners presented the USDA with a comprehensive Produce Market Stabilization Program to immediately support critical financial needs in the produce supply chain.
“This was a major undertaking to understand the wide-ranging financial impact the COVID-19 crisis is having on our entire industry,” says Tom Stenzel, President and CEO of United Fresh Produce Association. “Industry members from across the supply chain have been helping estimate losses and define where immediate assistance is most needed. They’ve also been critical in helping us understand the intricacies of our supply chain; how the entire chain can be affected by the shutdown of the restaurant and hospitality industry almost overnight; and the weaknesses becoming apparent every day in our ability to keep the food supply chain moving.”
Stenzel emphasizes that the fresh produce industry, including both field- and greenhouse-grown crops, is not a supply chain that can pause.
“When we harvest today, that product starts a journey that ends up being consumed usually in just a couple weeks,” Stenzel says. “Disruptions to demand at the end of that journey create financial impact everywhere along the chain from field to table. Whether it’s lost inventory along the supply chain or crops left in the field, the impact is shared. And that’s to say nothing about future lost sales.”
According to Stenzel, the proposal to USDA with 85 different produce organizations signed on is “nothing less than amazing.” Rather than each group fighting for its own, the groups forged a consensus to help them fight together as an industry, as every other food and agriculture sector is facing its own challenges.
These produce organizations, Stenzel says, also worked together with Congressional leaders from across the country to educate, advocate, and convince them of the urgent need to support the fresh produce industry.
“Some 108 members of Congress sent their own bipartisan letter to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue urging USDA’s support for our cause. Now that’s a powerful statement!” Stenzel says. “I especially want to thank Congressmen Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Fred Upton (R-MI), Jim Costa (D-CA), and Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) for spearheading the Congressional support for this letter, and all of my colleagues in produce associations around the country who worked to get their local Congressmen and Congresswomen to sign on.”
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