Researchers and extension specialists are warning that an upcoming El Niño pattern could bring wetter conditions to Florida's strawberry growing regions, raising the risk of fungal and bacterial diseases during the 2026-27 season. A spray alert system is being promoted to help growers respond faster when conditions turn dangerous.

Florida is the dominant domestic strawberry supplier during the winter months, and disease pressure from wet El Niño conditions has historically caused significant yield losses and quality problems. This is an early heads-up — the season doesn't start until fall — but it's the kind of forecast that changes input planning and risk management decisions now.

Given that Florida already had a brutal 2025-26 season, another difficult year would have serious ripple effects on winter strawberry availability and pricing. Buyers with heavy strawberry programs should be factoring this into their forward sourcing conversations.

The 2026 Northwest cherry season has kicked off, with harvest beginning across early districts this week. Growers are reporting strong fruit quality and excellent sizing, with promotable volumes expected to build steadily over the coming weeks under favorable weather conditions.

This is a big deal for the summer produce floor. Northwest cherries are a high-visibility, high-margin category, and an on-time, quality-forward start sets up a strong promotional window heading into June. This comes after the crop estimate was trimmed by 12% earlier in the season, so buyers already know supply will be tighter than last year — but what's coming in is looking good.

Expect promotional volumes to be available in the first week of June. With the reduced crop size, allocations may move fast — buyers who haven't locked in programs should be in contact with their shippers now.

A Republican-backed agricultural appropriations bill for 2027 proposes cutting $141 million in WIC benefits, which would eliminate fresh fruit and vegetable access for nearly 5.4 million toddlers, preschoolers, and pregnant or postpartum women. WIC's produce benefit was one of the few federal nutrition programs that had been consistently expanded in recent years.

For the produce industry, WIC is a direct demand driver — it funnels real purchasing power into the fresh fruit and vegetable category at retail. Cutting it doesn't just affect public health; it removes a significant volume of predictable consumer demand, particularly in lower-income markets where WIC shoppers represent a meaningful share of category sales.

This is moving through the appropriations process now, so the timeline is real. Industry groups and retailers with heavy WIC traffic should be watching this closely — and some are already pushing back.

Sweet corn had a rough early spring, with extreme weather in Florida causing short supplies during the traditional kickoff window. Heat stress in Western growing regions compounded the problem, creating disruptions across two of the category's most important early-season production areas.

Sweet corn is a Memorial Day and summer staple — short early-season supply puts pressure on retail promotions right when demand is peaking. Florida has already been dealing with one of its worst agricultural seasons in recent memory, so this fits a broader pattern of disruption hitting the state's vegetable output.

The good news is that supply typically broadens as the season moves north through the summer. But buyers should expect tighter availability and potentially higher costs on early corn programs while regional growing catches up.

Maine's wild blueberry industry suffered $28 million in crop losses in 2025, according to newly published data. Wild blueberries — smaller, more intensely flavored than cultivated varieties — are a distinct market segment with a loyal consumer base and strong demand in processed food applications like yogurt, baked goods, and frozen fruit.

Wild blueberries can't simply be replanted or shifted to new acreage like cultivated crops — they grow from naturally occurring fields that take years to recover from damage. That makes these losses structurally significant, not just a one-season blip. Maine's wild blueberry industry has been under pressure from a combination of weather events, disease, and competition from cultivated blueberries.

For buyers sourcing wild blueberries for processed or fresh applications, this is a signal to review supply continuity. Domestic wild supply tightening could push more demand toward Canadian wild blueberry sources in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Strawberry growers across South Carolina are reporting significant losses from Fusarium wilt during the final stretch of the 2026 season. Clemson Extension specialists say affected fields are showing collapsing plants, yellowing leaves, and wilted crowns — the classic signs of a wilt infection taking hold fast.

Fusarium wilt is a soil-borne fungal disease with no cure once it's in the ground, making it particularly damaging in commercial strawberry operations. The timing is brutal — hitting at the tail end of the season means growers lose the last weeks of revenue they were counting on. This follows an already difficult year for berry production after frost and disease issues were reported from Wisconsin and Florida earlier this spring.

Watch this one heading into next season: Fusarium-infected fields can remain contaminated for years, which means affected growers may face hard decisions about replanting locations and variety selection for 2027.

Missouri lawmakers have stripped $2 million in state funding from the Double Up Food Bucks program, which matched SNAP dollars spent on fresh fruits and vegetables at participating retailers and farmers markets. The program was operated by the Mid-America Regional Council and had been one of the more effective tools for connecting low-income households with fresh produce.

Double Up-style programs are considered some of the most direct ways to drive incremental produce sales in underserved markets — they effectively double the purchasing power of SNAP dollars specifically on fresh fruits and vegetables. Losing $2 million in state backing could significantly reduce participation and reach across Missouri.

This is part of a broader national pattern: between potential WIC cuts at the federal level and state-level rollbacks like this one, produce demand drivers for lower-income consumers are being squeezed from multiple directions at once.