Current through August, 2024
Section I
DEFINITIONS
The terms defined in this section shall have the
following meanings:
(a) Act
means 6 V.S.A. Chapter 24.
(b) Board means the Vermont Apple
Marketing Board established by
6 V.S.A. Section
252.
(c) Bushel means 40
pounds.
(d) Producer
means any individual, partnership, corporation or other business
entity engaged within this state in the business of producing apples
or causing apples to be produced for any market. The term shall only
apply to persons who annually produce and wholesale more than 500
bushels of apples.
(e)
Wholesale means the act of selling to retail vendors, commission
merchants, brokers, producers, wholesalers, handlers, processors,
distributors, insititutional users or commercial users mainly for
resale or business use. A commodity is sold wholesale if it is sold
by a producer to anyone other than the consumer who pays the final
price for the commodity.
(f) Person means any individual,
firm, corporation, partnership, company or unincorporated
association.
(g)
Commissioner means the commissioner of agriculture or his or her
designee..
Section
II APPLE PROMOTION, RESEARCH AND INSPECTION
The Apple Marketing Board may contract with other
parties and expend funds obtained pursuant to the assessment levied
in this marketing order for the following purposes:
(a) The board may carry out
in-state and out-of-state advertising, promotion, and publicity
programs that are designed to maintain or enhance present markets or
create new markets for apples. However, no such advertising,
promotion, or publicity programs shall be conducted with reference to
any particular private brand or trade name and no such program shall
disparge the quality, value, sale, or use of any other agricultural
commodity.
(b) The board
may carry on research programs designed to further the purposes of 6
V.S.A. Chapter 24.
(c)
The board may adopt mechanisms to assure uniform grading, standards,
and inspection of apples which are in accord with any rules
promulgated pursuant to 6 V.S.A. Chapter 23.
Section III BUDGET AND ASSESSMENT
(a) During each marketing season,
and no later than August 15, the board shall estimate a budget
necessary for the administration and enforcement of this order and
for carrying out the programs created thereunder. The budget may
provide that the Department of Agriculture shall be reimbursed for
its actual costs of administering the program, but the reimbursement
shall not exceed 5 percent of the total funds collected under this
order.
(b) The board
shall announce rates of assessment that will provide adequate funds
to defray expenditures in the budget. The rate of assessment shall
not exceed eight cents per bushel on all U.S. # 1 apples sold at
wholesale on or after September 2, 1985. Under no circumstances shall
the foregoing rate of assessment exceed the maximum rate authorized
in paragraph (e)(5) of Section 253 of the Act.
Section IV COLLECTION OF ASSESSMENT
(a) Each producer shall be
responsible for payment of the proper assessment upon the apples
which he produces and sells.
(b) All producers, producer sales
cooperatives, and/or producer sales agents shall make remittance and
accounting of the proper assessment to the commissioner, not later
than the last day of each of the months of November, February, April
and July.
(c) For each
producer for whom a broker or other agent sells or otherwise
transfers apples, the broker may, at the option of the producer,
deduct from moneys owed to the producer, the proper assessment on the
first sale units sold or otherwise transferred from storage and
thereby assume responsibility for the producer's
assessment.
Section
V BALANCES
Any moneys remaining in the fund allocated to apples
affected by a marketing order may, in the discretion of the board, be
refunded at the close of any marketing season upon a pro rata basis
to all persons from whom assessments were collected. When, however,
the board determines that moneys may be necessary to defray the cost
of operating a marketing order in a succeeding marketing season it
may carry over all or any portion of the moneys into the next
succeeding season. Further, if upon termination of a marketing order,
the commissioner finds that amounts refundable under
6
V.S.A. Section 253 are so small as
to make impracticable the computation and refunding of refunds, the
commissioner may use the moneys to defray the expenses incurred in
the formulation, issuance, administration or enforcement of any
subsequent marketing order.
Section VI EFFECTIVE DATE
The assessment shall be levied on all U.S. # 1 grade,
or better, apples harvested and sold wholesale. This order shall take
effect on September 2, 1985.
Statutory Authority: 6 V.S.A. Chatper
24
