Ag News: Retail Produce Sales Mixed and Roundup Award Upheld
**Retail fresh produce sales totaled $5.4 billion in April, down 3.6% from 2020 but up 10.3% from 2019.
www.thepacker.com reports, fresh fruit sales were up 1.5% and fresh vegetable sales were down 8.8%.
According to IRI, vegetables faced a higher bar than fruit in the year-over-year comparison for April given the huge sales increases for potatoes, onions and other cooking vegetables in the early days of COVID-19.
www.thepacker.com/news/retail/fresh-produce-retail-sales-april-remain-well-above-2019-baseline?mkt
**A federal appeals court has upheld a damages award of $25 million to a California man who contracted non-Hodgkin lymphoma after decades of exposure to Roundup.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the lower court verdict that found Roundup was a "substantial factor" in causing his illness and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act does not pre-empt state law claims.
Monsanto "argues it did not know and could not have known that glyphosate caused cancer in 2012."
www.agrimarketing.com/s/136334
**The Senate last week approved the nomination of Dr. Jewel Bronaugh as deputy USDA secretary.
Most recently, Bronaugh was Virginia’s agriculture commissioner and previously was the Virginia state executive director for USDA’s Farm Service Agency.
The National Pork Producers Council looks forward to working with Bronaugh on issues of importance to U.S. pork producers.
Once sworn in, she’ll be the first woman of color to serve as USDA’s deputy secretary.