Where do your fresh fruit and veggies come from? Find out with new tool

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AMES, Iowa -- Consumers who want to know where their apple or bunch of broccoli might have been grown can check out a new online resource that tracks the origins of 95 different fresh fruits and vegetables typically sold in U.S. supermarkets. Besides showing product origins, the tool allows the user to see which state is the leading domestic producer of these crops.

The new web site tool, Where do your fresh fruits and vegetables come from?, was developed by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the Center for Transportation Research and Education at Iowa State University.

"This tool is designed to help people increase their knowledge of food geography and the origins of fresh produce typically sold in the U.S. retail or food service sector," said Leopold Center Associate Director Rich Pirog, who guided development of the tool.

Pirog explained that the resource uses information collected by the Fruit and Vegetable Market News Service of the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service. An annual USDA summary shows a sampling of domestic rail and piggyback movements and imports as well as export shipments of 95 fruit and vegetable crops.

The resource also shows the percentage of shipments each month, one indication of when a fruit or vegetable crop may be in season.

"As might be expected, more than half of the tracked shipments of grapes come from California, which is our leading domestic producer of grapes," Pirog said. "But grape shipments monitored in 2007 also came from Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Egypt, South Africa and Argentina."

Pirog noted that the USDA data does not include all domestic movements of fresh produce commodities in the United States. It is possible that a produce item may come from a state or country not listed in the USDA report or this resource. Locally grown food items sold in stores usually are labeled as such, and may or may not be tracked by the USDA.

Other interesting findings:

• Although Florida and Texas are leading producers of grapefruit, the United States also receives grapefruit shipments from the Bahamas, Mexico, Israel and Peru.
• In 2007, the USDA tracked more kiwi shipped to the United States from Chile than from New Zealand, where growers renamed the fruit after their national bird in 1959 and began to market it abroad. The United States also markets kiwi from Italy, California, Greece, Panama and Thailand.
• China is a new and growing source of fresh produce for the United States.
• In 2007, the USDA tracked Chinese shipments of 17 different kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables coming into the United States.

For more information about "Where do your fresh fruits and vegetables come from?" contact Pirog at (515) 294-1854, or rspirog@iastate.edu. 

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The Leopold Center was established by the 1987 Iowa Groundwater Protection Act as a research and education center at Iowa State University to develop sustainable agricultural practices that are both profitable and conserve natural resources. Iowa State does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, sex, marital status, disability, or status as a U.S. Vietnam Era Veteran. Any persons having inquiries concerning this may contact the Director of Affirmative Action, 3210 Beardshear Hall, (515) 294-7612.

This page was found at http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/news/07-15-2008/where-do-your-fresh-fruit-and-veggies-come-find-out-new-tool on 01/21/2013