Most of Gippsland's cauliflower, broccoli and green leafy vegetable crops have been wiped out leading to an almost certain price rise on supermarket shelves. Consumers face a big shortage of fresh vegetables and soaring prices following last week's floods in eastern Victoria. Some industry bodies are tipping a 500 per cent price rise and Mike Badcock from Ausveg says no other production areas can fill the shortages either. Vic floods cause vegetable price hike.

The organic greenhouse vegetable industry is one that is growing, Sheehan says, though it s only recently that certain production hurdles have been overcome. Greenhouse production may not be a rapidly growing market, but it s still a financially significant one for the province, she says. Greenhouse production no rose garden. Greenhouse vegetable production is such a small acreage base but its financial impact is huge. A small proportion of crops are grown in the interior near Kelowna,...

farmers produce more food than any other country in the world and are tops in corn, soybeans, milk and cattle, according to a United Nations agriculture census. Within the next decade, those older farmers will be looking for someone to take over their operations and selling millions of acres of land. At the same time, it's becoming more costly for young people to go into farming, and many of them see that they can make a better living by leaving the rural areas. Pennsylvania, Connecticut...

Reliance Fresh is also going to provide hawkers and small vegetable vendors selling on push carts with uniforms and push carts and unsold vegetable will be on a buy-back basis. Although the authorities put in efforts to secure interests of the farmer, but these perishable products turn into a liability for the farmers if remain unsold, thus most of them succumb to pressures of the middlemen and sell their produce before the vegetable sellers make their purchases and shift goods to their...

Market coordinator Monica Ball and other organizers of the Delaware Township sponsored market want the rules changed to encourage the people they call "garden farmers. It's not very farm friendly," said Ball, who raises children, chickens, fruits and vegetables on her family's 7 acres in Delaware Township. She's proposing a safe-foods course as a requirement for farm market vendors instead of the existing regulations, which she says are enforced differently from county to county. She's...