The California Fresh Fruit Association (CFFA) has announced the speakers for their upcoming 80th Annual Meeting, March 20-22, 2016, in Newport Coast, California. This year’s event will feature addresses by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, Professor and National Syndicated Columnist, and Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli, Executive Director of the Center for Produce Safety.
Both speakers will deliver passionate messages about issues that are impacting the future of California agriculture and what our industry must do to be prepared.
Dr. Victor Davis Hanson
Dr. Hanson, who represents the fifth successive generation to live in the same house on his family’s farm, was a full-time orchard and vineyard grower from 1980-1984, before joining California State University, Fresno campus in 1984 to initiate a classical languages program. He is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture. He divides his time between his forty-acre tree and vine farm near Selma, California and the Stanford campus.
Dr. Hanson will discuss the current factors impacting the future of California agriculture. His talk will expose the many factors that are challenging a sustainable future for the Ag industry in California, and what drastic changes are necessary for the industry to survive.
Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli
It’s no secret that food safety concerns are not only on the top of our minds (as evident in CFFA’s Top Ten Issues) but our customers’ minds as well. Demonstrating a strong conviction that food safety is a shared responsibility of the entire produce supply chain, from growers to shippers to retailers, Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli, Executive Director for the Center for Produce Safety (CPS) will discuss her organization’s vital role in our industry’s combined efforts to keep updated and involved in food safety issues. Through sound research, education and outreach encompassing industry, government and academic resources, CPS is ensuring that our industry has the tools necessary to not only address food safety issues, but prevent them.
Through CFFA’s partnership with CPS, we have direct access to research and education that gives us necessary tools to address food safety priorities and strengthen the produce supply chain. The fresh produce industry is responsible for supplying a safe food supply to the world’s consumers. Ms. Fernandez-Fenaroli will share how CPS provides ready-to-use, science-based solutions to prevent or minimize produce safety vulnerabilities, and why production agriculture’s participation is so important.
Contact
Barry Bedwell
Tel: (559) 226-6330
Ian LeMay
Cell: (559) 905-7751