| Seventy-three fresh vegetable marketing cooperatives handled 57 different fresh vegetable commodities weighing 1.6 billion pounds; these vegetables are valued at more than $218 million. In 1986, cooperatives handled more than 4 percent of the total volume of nine principal fresh vegetables produced in the United States. Important concerns of fresh vegetable marketing cooperatives were competition from domestic and foreign areas, overproduction, labor shortage and high costs, marketing, quality, and transportation. Although associations were using their facilities to 71 percent of capacity, 58 percent planned expansion over the next 5 years to provide facilities for handling the expected increase in new members and increased volume of current members. |
