The Meeting Spot

It seems every night at the Sheraton, everyone would looks one another up at the ocean balcony and bar. Everyone, from Mission to Index, to APEAM to HAB, to USDA to SAGARPA, everyone seemed especially thirsty after the last round table discussion.

Our Wine Expert is his Glory

Red Bulls and Nights of Expectation

Big Tom of Rancho Cielo was ready for PISCO!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Attending breakfast meetings with growers and officials, lunches with competitors and dinners with our peers, the Avocado Congress had enough interaction for anyone. We saw many of our Chilean friends everyday and mixing very well with their Mexican competitors. I think everyone was friendly on the surface but still fiercely competitive below. Scientists from Israel, South Africa and New Zealand were abundant. Drinks with friends and foes was a comment sight. Only during an Avocado Congress can you get so many people to get along. (Where was Mark and the CAC?)

All the Young Dudes

Congreso Mundial VI, Vina del Mar, Chile

The congress was an amazing event with over 1,000 devoted avocado professionals from 26 countries attending. The congress officially opened Tuesday at 9:00 AM. Many professional people from California attended like Mary Arpaia, Carol Lovatt, Rubin Hosfshi, Jose Luis Orbrigon, Charlie Wolk, Ben Drake, Len Francis, Tom Schoenberg, Phil Nicols, USDA personel, and prominent California entomologists. Packers represented were Mission, Index and West Pak. Dole and Del Monte representatives were on hand also. Overall a virtual who's who of the avocado, or should say Palta Aguacate industry. The average oral session lasted 20 minutes with 10 minutes to answer any questions. Most presentations were given at least three times to allow for the maximum amount of people to view them. At the end of the congress a daily round table was initiated on global matters like production and marketing. If you were a grower or academic, this convention was right up your alley.

We as packers being in the world economy full time found the subjects to be less inspiring. Many subjects were familiar but it was good to mix socially amongst our peers. Remember, no one is going to lay out a radical improvement to the industry in front of so many competitors.

Program Examples from the Congress

The congress had so many lectures of interest that you would have to work very hard to make all of the lectures of interest. The two areas of focus were scientific research and post harvest subjects. I will list some of the topics for your information:

Scientific:
 Optimizing the replanting of orchards infested with Phytophthora Cinnamomil
 Practical value of Allesbeste micro cloning technique
 25 years of rootstock development in South Africa
 Evaluation of two new varieties of avocado trees similar to those of Hass found in Chile
 Malum Hass: a new release cultivar in comparison with Hass
 Evaluation of avocado germplsm using microsatillite markers
 Fruit analysis as an alternative to leaf analysis for diagnosing iron status of avocado trees
 Effect of fertilization with nitrification inhibitors
 Validation of foliar nutrient foliar dynamics cures for Hass Avocados in Michoachan

Post Harvest
 An overview of the South African Industry
 The avocado industry in Chile and Chilean avocado committee
 Israeli avocado industry
 Determination of minimum percentage of dry matter to authorize the harvest of Hass avocados for export
 U.S. Hispanics and their purchase and consumption regards to avocados
 Peruvian avocado industry
 An importers view or the European market
 Current situations, problems and future of the avocado in Peru
 Strategy for the inclusion of small and medium sized avocados produces in Mexico due to legal controls for fruit transportation in Michoachan
 Avocados in pre-Hispanic times
 MHAIA and APEAM promotional campaigns in the United States
 Competitiveness and production conversion of conventional avocados to organic avocado from Michoachan
 Mechanisms of induced susceptibility to post harvest disease treatments

If any of you are interested, we have abstracts and PDF notes on all of the subjects. Please feel free to contact me for anything!

Municipal Casino

This is the Municipal Casino in Vina Del Mar where the World Avocado Congress was held. On the lower level is the full casino with all the gambling you could handle. On the second and third levels, the classrooms and individual booths were located. Not only was the location central to the hotels but was within easy walking distance of the Shearton.

Listening to Lectures can Get You Ripe in the Seat

Will the Suspect to the Far Right Step One Step Forward!

This picture is the WHOLE group that attened the Cabil BBQ. Lots of West Pak and Mission employees and growers.(Taking about a universal bonding event with your grower one-on-one) his event would be excellent in the future; to have a booth and a coordinated effort directed towards the top growers of West Pak. Tomorrow they will vote on New Zealand or Australia for the next WAC event!

Where's the Beef!

Yukking up lunch

We had lunch in an 8 heactre oasis in the middle of the 500 hectre (1,200 acre) new ranch. The next two videos are short videos taken during the festivities. Again you will notice many Mission and West Pak people with a smattering of mostly Aussies. Remember this is still Monday PM!

The Grirl from Impanada

After the long and winding grove tour (very interesting) we viewed the frosted areas where it will take years for recovery. This lead us to our highlight of the day! BBQ and Chilean wines! Well everyone had bonded by then, due to our near death driving around the grove experiences so the BBQ went off like crazy. The wine did its job too. We had everything from empanadas to a tri-tip type beef BBQ. I will post the BBQ and mountain goat videos a little later. Off to see Propal facilities today! Wish us luck.

500 Hectres and Counting

I'm still stuck on our Monday activities. Our schedules are very heavy and I am having a hard time keepin the blog current. We left the facilities and toured the plantings. Overall frost damage for the Chileans was pretty limited to the lower valleys. All the hillsides were in FULL BLOOM and looking good. Chileans plant high density style (400-500 a acre) which is triple the California standard. The two biggest thoughts to enter my little mind when traveling around the hills were, when was the bus going to take all of us to our deaths and second, can't they ever stop planting!

Next years crop appears to be stronger than anticipated-again with all the new plantings making up for the frost damage shortage. This current season they told us to expect around another million cartons than expected and a few exporters may go to February. DAMMIT!

The Two Stooges

As you can see me and Jim Donovan of Mission are up to a little fun standing in front of our respective competitors boxes. The shed tour was interesting with some ideas that should be brought back to Temecula and Uruapan. The facility had a more weathered look even though they were down to around 80 tons a day production.

I was most impressed with there new artwork on there boxes and bags. Ours are getting a little long in tooth. Cleanliness is not Godliness at Cabil and it apperared they did little clean up for the tour.

We had growers from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa on tour with of course the bangin West Pak and Mission entourage!

The Great Race

It's Tuesday and the first day of classes for the World Avocado Congress. With over 1,000 participants from 45 countries, its quite a spectacle. The class schedule is quite tight with only 20 minutes allowed on each subject. This makes it difficult to get into any one item in much detail. All classes are repeated three to four times to allow all participants plenty of opportunity to make each class of interest.

As expected nothing SUPER revolutionary has been discovered. Most companies with a new hot idea are the last ones to spill the beans if front of the entire world. This event is more like a great get together with the personal relationship side of things out weighing the actual presentations.

Don't get me wrong-many specialists presenting material are either not great public speakers or the material is drier than old bread. Everyone is enjoying the energy during the sessions so things are going well!

Cabil Tour Video 3

Cabil Tour Video 2

Cabil Tour Video 1

Cabil and the Aristocrats

Moday we spent the whole day with our fine supplier Cabil Frut. They rented a bueatiful first class bus and we took around a 3 hour drive from Vina to Cabildo-the home town of Cabil. We were meet by the very politically famous family of Edwardo, Fernando and Juan Pablo. The other sons and daughters greeted us with great fanfare. Our tour started with a close up of the packing and cold strorage operations with a stop for cookies and expresso.

Cheers-Everone Knows our Name

It was refreshing to get into the hotel and get called out by our group from across the hotel. They were still in the bar! Will wonders ever cease? Tom (Rancho Cielo) and Len (L & F Grove Management) especially looked very smiley (happy growers are consignment growers!). We hanged out for awhile at the bar and eventually all went to ours beds for our grand tour of CABIL fruit facilities the next day. Sunday for Me, Trevor and Kellen was shot but the guys seemed to enjoy getting acclimated to the beautiful city of Vina Del Mar. It reminds me of Monte Carlo of South America. I’m definitely coming back on day just for vacation! (Picture taken from the hotel the next day)

Stuck in Lodi

We finished fishing Sunday morning and headed back to Balcemeda to fly to Santiago and meet the boys in Vina. The only problem was LAN decided to ground the particular aircraft and we had to wait at the airport for almost 6 hours. Try hanging out at a remote wind blown tundra dink hole airport for that 6 hours and you’ll know our frustration. WE finally arrived Santiago around 10PM and drove to Vina Del Mar. After setting the Chilean F1 driving speed record we arrived at our hotel around 11PM or so Sunday evening.

Lunch at with Patagonia Condors

For lunch every day Monte set up a typical Chilean lunch ( with Propal paltas) with wine (Viconto brand, of course) and lunch meats with a special HOT sauce for us gringos who don't like bland Chilean food.

A River Runs Through It

We had a great guide Monte, who did everything from carry your gear to tying every fly, leader and line. He really taught us how to fly fish (It sure cost me though) and the art of using different flies to get that special fish. Kellen turned out to have the best style and Trevor caught the most. Kellen also had the honor to be the only one of us to fall into the river. Thank God for waders!

The Big Fishing Day

As the old saying goes, the worst day fishing beats that the best day working. Well this is true, but you need to fly 7,000 miles to Patagonia to find out. Overall after the side show got going we fished for almost 15 hours on Saturday. We had to catch and release but caught around 20 trout with the largest around 24 inches long. We hooked up on a Salmon but he was way to strong and large to real in. Overall, a very interesting side trip!

One Day you Must Visit Patagonia

Fishing the Pampas!

Our guide Monte, from the Fly Shop showed up and introduced himself. He lived in Montana the bulk of his life as a rive rafter and had recently moved down to marry a girl for Concepcion, Chile. We meandered back to Coyaquil, the capital of the PATAGONIA and fished fishing around 9 PM, yes 9 PM. It’s light down there until 11 PM. We caught a few BROWN trout and headed to the fishing lodge for a well deserved rest and to reenergize for Saturday’s fishing marathon.

The Long and Winding Road

The air section of the Chilean trip was full of surprise and last second adventures. We took off out of San Diego on a poodle jumper headed to LAX but the plane was really late. By the time we arrived at LAN Chile’s desk inside Bradley terminal, the airline told us if we had been more 10 more minutes, our tickets would have been canceled.

We loaded onto the airplane and took out of LAX headed fro a 8 ½ hours journey to Lima, Peru. The flight was uneventful and the NEW Lima airport is quite an upgraded to Santiago’s. Stopping in Lima around midnight, we changed planes and flew 3 ½ hours to Santiago. To our surprise LAN Chile had lost 2 out of 4 bags (All the fishing equipment!) and had no idea where it was. We were devastated!

About the only good news about being stuck at the airport for 6 hours until our flight to Southern Chile, was our luggage could maybe catch up with us. We had no sleep for 32 hours but the Pisco Sours were flowing strong as we waited. We boarded LAN again heading to the bottom of the world. (2,000 miles from Antarctica) We stopped in Porte Mott and on to Balcemeda. Balcemeda is an old Chile air force base in no where’s Ville. The good news was our luggage was knocking around Lima for a few hours and got onto the plane we actually flew to Balcemeda. What a relief to find out your gear was found!

Were Flying this all the way to Chile?

It's Almost Time!

Welcome to the West Pak BLOG site for the World Avocado Congress. We hope to post daily content from around Chile. This trip we will add a new feature similiar to YouTube video. Each day we hope to ad various video shorts to improve your experience. Well, Trevor and I leave tomorrow with Dave and Heath leaving Saturday. Hopefully we should start posting as soon as we get hooked up to the Internet in Chile!