California plum growers and shippers are gearing up to ship more than 500,000 boxes of plums to mainland China under a new agreement reached this year following more than a decade of effort to formally open China’s burgeoning consumer market to U.S. stone fruit. Growers and shippers are now registering their orchards and facilities and taking steps to meet a specific protocol for exporting fruit to this promising market. While imports are limited to plums from only five California counties, industry groups, government officials, and grower-shippers have heralded the deal as an important first step toward reopening a major market […]