apples

As a sign of partnership, India will remove retaliatory tariffs on U.S. apples, chickpeas, lentils, almonds, and walnuts, said U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai on Thursday, The decision was announced as part of a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington.

Apple growers are shifting toward varieties such as Honeycrisp and Pink Lady, although Gala and Red Delicious are still the industry’s powerhouses, accounting for nearly three of every 10 apples grown in America, said the U.S. Apple Association on Thursday.

Exports of U.S. apples "have taken a big hit in recent years," with the Sino-U.S. trade war as a leading reason, said the U.S. Apple Association on Thursday. The trade group called on the Biden administration to remove U.S. tariffs on Chinese products so that China would eliminate its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods that include apples.

Gala, a relative newcomer, holds the No. 1 spot in U.S. apple production for the third year in a row, while Honeycrisp, described by one reviewer as "juicy and instantly refreshing," moved up a notch to No. 3, said the U.S. Apple Association on Thursday.

In a series of adjustments to its $16-billion coronavirus relief program, the USDA said on Thursday that apple, potato, and blueberry growers would now qualify for federal payments for sales lost to the pandemic. More than one-third of the money in the program has already been paid in cash to farmers and ranchers. (No paywall)

The U.S. Apple Association, a trade group, called for free access to overseas markets on Thursday, as it reported that export sales for 2018 had plummeted to $854 million, down from $1.1 billion in 2017.

This year, after more than half a century as America’s favorite, the Red Delicious apple will be surpassed by the Gala as the No. 1 apple grown in the United States, said the trade group USApple on Thursday.

Washington state farmers grow 70 percent of the country’s apples, but this year there’s a new apple on the tree, says NPR. For the first time anywhere, growers are planting a variety known as Cosmic Crisp, named after the yellow, star-like flecks in its flesh.

The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) says a new "non-browning" strain of Fuji apple poses no "risk to human health or the environment," AgriPulse reports. It will be the third in Okanagan Specialty Fruits' "Arctic Apple" line to gain USDA approval. The first two were Granny Smith and Golden Delicious varieties.

The bottom line in a Cornell study: If you want school children to eat more fruit, serve them sliced apples rather than whole fruit. "It sounds simplistic but even the simplest forms of inconvenience affect consumption," says David Just, professor of behavioral economics, told the Washington Post.

If there’s one fruit to be wary of its conventional strawberries, says the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which put the fruit at the top of its annual "Dirty Dozen" ranking.

Neal Carter, "the world's most infamous apple farmer," tells Buzzfeed that his genetically engineered Arctic apple is a response to Americans' demand for convenience in food and will reduce food waste. The apple flesh resists browning and bruising when it is sliced. "An apple's not convenient enough," Carter tells Stephanie Lee. "That's the truth. The whole apple is too much of a commitment in today's world."

"Americans have been falling hard for new apples," says the New York Times. Three recently developed varieties - Ambrosia, Honeycrisp and Jazz - are in the top 10 for sales and were the only ones to record a sales increase in 2014. Mainstays such as Red Delicious and McIntosh slumped. Fruit breeders are creating new varieties with names such as SweeTango, SnapDragon and Cosmic Crisp.

China agreed to open its market to imports of all varieties of U.S.-grown apples, a step thatUSDA said could expand apple exports, worth $1 billion in 2013, by 10 percent.

Cosmic Crisp is a new variety of apple developed by Washington State University and should appear in orchards in 2017, says the Associated Press.

China would be allowed to ship apples to the United States under a regulation proposed by USDA's Animal and Plant Inspection Service. In a Federal Register notice, APHIS set a 60-day comment period. The proposed rule sets out safeguards against introduction of pests. For example, fruit from areas with Oriental fruit fly infestation must be fumigated and refrigerated as well as inspected.

At the same time U.S. sugar growers launched a trade challenge against sugar imported from Mexico, apple growers in Mexico say they are being put out of business by U.S. apples. Growers attempted to get the government to cut off the imports and a senator accused the United States of dumping apples on Mexico, says Public Radio International in a story produced in partnership with FERN, the Food and Environment Reporting Network.