December 2007 NHC NEWS A Monthly Bulletin of the Northwest Horticultural Council CANADA   The trade relationship between our industry and the Canadian market is long, valuable—and since the sunset in 2000 of an antidumping case brought by Canadian apple growers—largely positive.  This past season our sweet cherry marketers sold roughly eleven percent of the Pacific Northwest crop, valued at $66 million, in Canada , making it their number one export market.  Canada ranks as our apple and pear marketers’ second largest export destination (following Mexico ) with combined sales of approximately $140 million. Since the turn of the century, countries scattered around the world—other than Canada —have received the great bulk of the Northwest Horticultural Council’s trade policy attention.  They have generated a seemingly never ending barrage of trade problems absorbing much of our attention. Focusing on the  crisis at hand is natural, yet in the  ever pressing need to handle these immediate problems for the industry we cannot afford to lose sight of other valuable but calmer markets.  It is important to renew contacts and friendships in times of tranquility rather than crisis.  And the assorted technical regulations affecting international trade inevitably change with time in all countries, including Canada . With the above in mind, Mark Powers traveled to Ottawa for separate meetings on November 13 with Anne Fowlie , Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Horticultural Council; Dan Dempster, President, and Heather Holland, Senior Technical Manager for Food Safety and Government Relations, of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association; Stephen Whitney, President and CEO of the Fruit and Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation; and Wayne Molstad, Minister Counselor, and George Myles, Agriculture Specialist, for USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Not unexpectedly, many of the issues that are front and center for our fruit shippers in the U.S. —food safety, chemical maximum residue levels, and getting paid—are also found in Canada .  And, on these issues the individuals and organizations listedabove are working toward the same goals as the NHC, reasonable rules and common standards that serve to facilitate trade. ¨ GREEN The complexities and paradoxes of the bundle of public policy issues that come under such terms as “food safety” and “green” are amazing. Do we want to encourage small farms?  Then why require stringent record keeping and costly food safety testing requirements that serve to drive operations ever larger? Do we want to reduce the unneeded material taken away in a shopper’s grocery cart? If so, why do retailers impose ever more plastic packaging requirements on shippers in the guise of food safety? Should legal liability fears be a greater driver of food safety standards than science itself? And the list goes on. ¨ Travel Christian Schlect December 3-5 – 103rd Annual Meeting/Post Harvest Conference of the Washington State Horticultural Association and meeting of the Washington Apple Commission, Wenatchee , Washington . December 14 – Continuing Legal Education Seminar on Encore of Excellence, Seattle , Washington . December 17 – Speaker at meeting of the Wenatchee Valley Traffic Association, Wenatchee , Washington . Mike Willett December 3-5 – 103rd Annual Meeting/Post Harvest Conference of the Washington State Horticultural Association, Wenatchee , Washington . Deborah Carter December 3-5 – Speaker at the 103rd Annual Meeting/Post Harvest Conference of the Washington State Horticultural Association, Wenatchee , Washington . December 17 – Meeting of the Wenatchee Valley Traffic Association, Wenatchee , Washington . Mark Powers December 4 – The Foundation for Russian American Economic Cooperation’s 2007 Annual Gala Event, Seattle , Washington . December 6 - PMA Fresh Connections lunch, Yakima , Washington . Mr. Waugh is a glorious old man.  He is just like a character from Dickens, fat, smiling and wise, with a face like a lovely big red apple. Alexander Waugh Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family Northwest Horticultural Council 105 South 18th Street, Suite 105 Yakima, Washington 98901, USA Voice: (509) 453-3193, Fax: (509) 457-7615 E-mail general@nwhort.org