Federal Marketing Orders for Fruits, Vegetables, Nuts, and Specialty Crops

Many marketing orders have regulations for funding promotion and research and establishing package, container, grade, and size requirements. The intent of these regulations is to increase sales by increasing buyer awareness of the product, developing more desirable products, and reducing marketing costs. A few marketing orders control the volume of produce entering certain markets and are intended to even out supplies and prices over time. These regulations can restrict sales of high-quality produce to the fresh-use market and boost farm prices for a given quantity. However, production increases stimulated by the higher prices subsequently reduce them.