Growers take steps to protect farmworkers’ health so they can continue to ensure an abundant, safe food supply is available to U.S. consumers.
Image source: The Pajaronian
It is likely the coronavirus pandemic will be a threat for most of the country next year, even as vaccines have begun to be administered. Vegetable and specialty crop producers are encouraged to be prepared when planning for next season’s harvest, specifically for how to keep their H-2A workers healthy.
Allison Crittenden, Director of Congressional Relations at the American Farm Bureau Federation, says the time is now to make those preparations.
“I think now that employers and farmers realize what steps they need to be taking to provide a safe workplace that hopefully mitigates the spread of the COVID. It’s the last thing anybody wants is an outbreak on their operation. I think if I were a grower going into my next season I would certainly be trying to stock up on masks and sanitizer; taking this time in the offseason to come up with a plan,” Crittenden said.
Knowing What to Expect
Farmers at least now know what to expect. It is a much different feeling than last spring when producers had to adjust on the go to keep their workforce healthy.
“I think when we all first heard about the pandemic, we thought this might be a short-term thing, but I think what we’ve learned is that it’s very long-term and likely will have long-term impacts on how businesses operate moving forward,” Crittenden said.
“I think I would take this time to learn from last season and the quick adaptations that growers had to put in place and use this time to plan accordingly, knowing that we’re still not out of the woods.”
The University of Florida (UF) and Rutgers University are teaming up to find out what food-safety issues are the biggest concerns across the produce industry. Members of the produce industry are invited to participate in an anonymous online survey that will take approximately 10 minutes to complete.
UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researcher Michelle Danyluk said the survey is part of research funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Research Initiative. “We want to make sure the things we spend our time researching are things that are … really meaningful for industry, things that can help bring clarity or find solutions to their biggest concerns,” Danyluk said.
“To date there are no documented outbreaks of foodborne disease related to fresh citrus, and most fresh market citrus growers and packers do a good job with their food-safety programs,” Danyluk said. “But food safety is still something that requires constant attention, and no one knows better than the industry what the issues are. This survey is really designed to find out what the industry’s top concerns are. What food-safety issues keep you up at night?”
The survey, which should be completed by the end of December, is available here.
Those taking the survey will be asked to rank their top five risk-management areas that need improvement in the produce industry. The survey will provide research data that will be used to guide future industry surveys and resource development specific to food safety.
The first survey question, the informed consent, must be answered “yes” in order to proceed through the survey. The informed consent provides more details about the nature of the survey, the handling of any information collected, and contact information. Anyone involved in the produce industry who is at least 18 years of age may take the survey.
A new University of Florida (UF) smartphone app will provide immediate help to the state’s blueberry producers who are gearing up for the upcoming season.
It is the first phase of a two-part project that Patricio Munoz, the UF/IFAS blueberry breeder and an assistant professor of horticultural sciences, tackled in hopes of consolidating chunks of information into one place that is easily accessible.
Munoz
“We wanted to release it right away because the season is coming. We’ve been telling the growers we’re going to release this and we decided to release it by phase. The phase one is just this and the second phase is going to be the cultivars. At least they’re going to have something to help them as quick as possible,” Munoz said.
He said the app tailored towards blueberry cultivars will be released later.
App Background
The UF/IFAS Blueberry Growers Guide phone app was released on Dec. 1. Growers can access information vital to blueberry production every year, specifically disease and insect management.
“The university, my colleagues have done a very good job generating this information. It’s just that nobody has put it together the way that we did it right now. We didn’t put the content together, we just organized it,” Munoz said. “We did work a little bit in the content, too, of course but most of it was done by colleagues in entomology, plant pathology and production.”
Valuable Crop in Florida
According to a UF press release, blueberries are a $60 million-per-year crop in Florida. Munoz estimated there between 5,200 and 5,400 acres with between 60 and 80 producers in the state.
A key advantage that smartphone apps provide producers is they do not have to carry a bulky growers guide into the field anymore. All the information they need is on their smartphones.
“That’s the assumption is that every grower has a smartphone nowadays. That’s why we put it together for both android and also iPhone. It should work in both systems,” Munoz said.
“Everybody has either one of them. It will make life a lot easier for a lot of people. Then if you’re in a place that doesn’t have a good signal you can download the whole thing and use offline as well.”
Abnormally dry weather conditions for Southeast Georgia have benefited Vidalia onion farmers who are trying to plant this year’s crop, says Chris Tyson, University of Georgia Extension Area Onion Agent at the Vidalia Onion & Vegetable Research Center in Lyons, Georgia.
“Most growers are completely finished or they’re finishing up within this week or shortly thereafter. That’s a good thing that we’re not dragging on into January like we do some years when we have weather delays,” Tyson said.
“We’re not always done by this time every year. Some years if it’s wet or we’re getting rains, it just delays us and goes on into Christmas or past Christmas and even into January on some years.”
Benefit to Planting Being Done
Since producers did not experience weather delays during planting and able to finish on time or earlier in some instances, they now can focus on applying fertilizer and fungicide sprays.
This also benefits them with regards to their H-2A labor.
“If they use H-2A labor, they have a contract with them to finish by a certain time, so they have all of that arranged before they ever come as far as their dates of when they’re going to work. If they have to work them longer, they have to do some renegotiation there with H-2A contract. They want them to get finished by that time so everything will work out with their H-2A labor,” Tyson said.
Drought Monitor
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, much of central and southeast Georgia are classified as ‘D0’ or abnormally dry. While the dry conditions were favorable for planting, they are not ideal for production. Much of the state received rainfall on Wednesday. But more is needed to produce a substantial crop.
“For the most part we’ve had pretty good weather as far as planting onions. Now that we’re getting a little bit of rain, most people need it and want it at this point,” Tyson said.
Alternaria disease is alive and well in Alabama vegetables and needs to be monitored, especially as temperatures remain unseasonably mild this winter.
Photo submitted by Joe Kemble/Shows Alternaria disease on a vegetable.
Joe Kemble, Alabama Extension vegetable specialist, said growers need to be vigilant in monitoring their crops.
“Despite the temperature, disease is still an issue right now. Last week I saw some pretty impressive Alternaria on several brassicas,” Kemble said.
“Unfortunately, temperature range wise, Alternaria is still going to be active with our fairly mild winters. It’s the kind of thing that can take off surprisingly quickly. I encourage growers to especially look on the edge of fields, row ends and things like that. It’s pretty characteristic and the nice thing is, there are very good controls out there for conventional producers.”
What is Alternaria?
Alternaria is a fungal disease that can cause a leaf spot. This will make impacted vegetables unmarketable. Greens like cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower are especially vulnerable.
This winter is expected to be especially mild since a La Nina weather pattern is predicted to move through. Warm temperatures are a characteristic of a La Nina, which means disease pressure could remain high.
“Unfortunately, the weather we’ve got, it’s still pretty conducive to development in Alabama. We never have prolonged freezing temperatures. That means that, unfortunately, diseases can be problematic especially when we have a mild winter like we’re supposed to have,” Kemble said.
“Unless we’re going to have weeks of temperatures below 30 degrees, 35, below 40 degrees basically, it’s always going to be an issue.”
Turn up the heat, and get more nutrition from your tomato, University of Florida researchers say. Furthermore, when you buy a tomato, it will be about as red as it can be, thanks to the UF/IFAS methods deployed for the study.
The findings are crucial to an industry in which Florida ranks second to California in tomato production in the United States.
In new research led by horticultural sciences Professor Jeffrey Brecht, UF/IFAS scientists put tomatoes in hot water and found it increased the red ripe look we love in tomatoes. By doing this, they also increased phenolics and carotenoids. To be clear, packinghouses in many states already treat tomatoes with hot water before shipping them to supermarkets – to clean them and prevent possible diseases — but the heat treatment for this study was a bit more extreme.
“The idea is that tomatoes have a certain genetic potential for antioxidant production that isn’t always realized,” said Brecht, a postharvest biologist. “That’s because tomatoes — all plants actually — produce antioxidants to deal with stress, and they produce more antioxidants the more stress they experience. Because we basically coddle tomatoes, the fruit doesn’t always realize its genetic potential for antioxidant production.”
“You could say that we found a way to make tomatoes get as red as they are able to get,” he said. “But the overall increase in antioxidants and the accompanying improvement in nutritional value is more important. Both the improved color and the improved nutritional value are benefits for consumers.”
For the study, researchers with UF/IFAS and the Agricultural Research Service (part of the USDA) applied increased heat to stimulate tomatoes. The major types of antioxidants in tomatoes are carotenoids and phenolics, Brecht said. Carotenoids include pigments, one of which is the red pigment, lycopene, which makes tomatoes red.
“So, in encouraging the tomatoes to make more antioxidants, we gave them a more red pigment,” he said. “But the major response to the heat stress was the production of phenolics, which are powerful antioxidants, but they are usually colorless.”
Researchers used an assay (test) that measures antioxidant capacity, but they also measured different types of antioxidant compounds to reach their conclusions.
Brecht describes the concept as “basic tomato physiology,” so the study’s methods apply to tomatoes, not just in Florida, but across the United States.
Tomatoes in Florida are most commonly harvested at the mature green stage and ripened after packing. Here’s how tomato packinghouses in Florida treat tomatoes before they go to your supermarket. They heat the dump tank water into which the tomatoes are transferred from field bins or gondolas to about 10 degrees above the tomato pulp temperature.
Packers use a water dump because it is the gentlest way to transfer fruit onto a packing line, and they use warm water because it reduces the chances of decay. Tomatoes are typically in the dump tank for a couple of minutes, Brecht said.
“We think that process could be modified to duplicate our hot-water treatment and improve the tomato quality,” he said.
According to the USDA Market News Service, Georgia pecan producers are about 90% finished with harvesting this year’s crop, while prices have improved some since last week.
Amid the lack of export opportunities, many growers are continuing to store their top quality and larger sized pecans in hopes of selling for better prices at a later date. Holiday retail and domestic sales have improved as buyers from other areas have actively pursued Georgia pecans.
Prices paid to growers (late afternoon Tuesday, December 8, 2020 through late afternoon
Tuesday, December 15, 2020) at buyers’ delivery point or F.O.B. the orchard including direct sales to end users, cents per pound in-shell of generally good quality in lots of 20,000 pounds or less unless otherwise stated.
Cape Fear (deliveries light) meat yield 52-53%, 129-140
Creek (deliveries very light) meat yield 53-54%, 121-129
Picture from Adam Bertolla/Shows massive pecan tree uprooted by Hurricane Sally.
Alabama pecan producers in Baldwin and Mobile Counties are still cleaning up debris left behind from Hurricane Sally more than three months ago. What many are not going to be doing, though, is replanting trees that were destroyed on Sept. 16, says Bryan Wilkins, Alabama Extension Research Associate.
“The older guys, they told me they’re done. Some of them, they’re in their early-to-mid-60s, they told me, ‘I’ll be 70 or 75-years-old before they start bearing, these new ones.’ I don’t know that they’re going to replant but they’re going to keep working what’s up. They’re going to keep working their orchards and what survived,” Wilkins said.
“I don’t know how much replanting is going to go on, to be honest. I know some of the younger ones are replanting and trying to get back up to speed that had some smaller orchards. But a lot of the older orchards, like those 90-year-old orchards, those guys are not going to replant that I know of.”
Farmer Testimonials
Pecan producers like Gary Underwood were hammered by the Category 2 storm. Underwood, who is based between Mobile, Ala. and Pensacola, Fla., lost a substantial amount of his pecan crop. He estimated he lost 600 trees.
Adam Bertolla lost 250 trees or a third of his pecan operation. He verified that he wasn’t going to replant.
“People say, ‘You going to replant?’ I say, ‘Hell no, I’m not going to replant,’” said Bertolla, referring to Hurricane Sally that made landfall in Alabama on Sept. 16. “No. 1, there’s going to be some more storms come; No. 2, I’m too old, even though I’m in my early 50s. There’s just not any use in doing it.”
Growers have another reason to be pessimistic about replanting their crop. Prices are devastatingly low this year.
“Right now, prices are low. That’s another thing that some of them are looking at and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change in the near future,” Wilkins said. “(But) they’re saying mostly it has to do with age. They’re aging out and they don’t have anybody coming on that wants to replace them.”
WASHINGTON, December 16, 2020 – Blueberry growers across America today established a new coalition, the American Blueberry Growers Alliance, to seek relief from rising imports that are harming their businesses. The Alliance will provide information and support to an ongoing U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation into the serious injury caused by increased imports of fresh, chilled and frozen blueberries under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Blueberry imports are sourced from several countries in the Western Hemisphere. Imports rose by more than 60% between 2015 and 2019. Imports from Peru and Mexico have increased by 1,258 and 268% during that same period, respectively, driving blueberry prices down by double digits, which has had a devastating impact on the domestic blueberry industry.
Alliance members are asking for bipartisan support from the U.S. government and Congress to use existing trade laws to remedy the injury to U.S. growers, support hard-working blueberry farmers, and preserve and enhance a U.S.-grown blueberry supply. The Alliance is also warning that in addition to injuring domestic businesses and livelihoods, rising imports expose American consumers to products from countries with poor food safety protocols.
“We have been telling Washington about unfair trade practices for years,” said Jerome Crosby, CEO of Pineneedle Farms in Georgia and head of the Alliance’s steering committee. “Our family farms continue to be harmed by a flood of blueberry imports. We need relief and for our leaders to stand with American growers.”
“Many family farms have become a casualty of rising imports and are being forced out of commercial production as other countries increase production to deliberately target the U.S. market,” said Brittany Lee, executive director of the Florida Blueberry Growers Association. “If something is not done, we will lose the blueberry industry in the United States.”
The Alliance includes blueberry growers in Georgia, Florida, Michigan and California.
The Alliance recently received support from a coalition of 32 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. In a letter to the U.S. International Trade Commission, the congressional members said: “The significant surge of imports of blueberries in recent years, the timing of such imports during U.S. harvest periods, the extremely low pricing of the imports, and the targeting of the U.S. blueberry market by foreign exporters has had a devastating impact on the blueberry industry…As the Commission develops the evidentiary record in this case, it will be clear that imports are a substantial cause of serious injury to farmers. We urge the Commission to promptly make an affirmative determination in this regard.”
The ITC plans to hold hearings in early 2021 and then deliver a report on blueberry injury and remedies to the White House. Under Section 203, the President then determines what action to take. To support this investigation, Alliance members are providing data and evidence on how blueberry imports are impacting their production, pricing and marketing activities, especially during the critical U.S. spring and summer harvesting seasons.
COLUMBIA — The South Carolina Department of Agriculture’s Agribusiness Center for Research and Entrepreneurship (ACRE), in partnership with Clemson Cooperative Extension, has awarded seven beginning entrepreneurs a share of $30,000 to help propel their agriculture businesses forward.
Weathers
Sixteen individuals or pairs participated in this year’s ACRE Curriculum, which guides beginning entrepreneurs through developing a business plan, marketing, finance, operational planning, pitching and other business skills. This year’s curriculum was conducted entirely online due to COVID-19, including the virtual Pitch Day.
The awardees, as selected by a panel of judges:
Sweetgrass Roots is a learning farm in Colleton County dedicated to preserving folk art crafts like sweetgrass basketry. “Seed to basket” entrepreneur Kisha Kinard plans to use ACRE funding for a storage structure.
Through Queen & Comb, property owners pay a monthly fee to have Tom Knaust place honeybee hives on their property, sharing 50-50 in the honey harvest and learning about pollinators. He plans to use ACRE funding to begin marketing his Charleston County business.
EliseAshby’s Farmers Market Flavors sells vegetable ice cream in flavors like blueberry-okra and cauliflower-butter pecan. She plans to use ACRE funding to help pay disadvantaged youth to work in her commercial kitchen in Union County.
Ginger Nichols grows aquaponic lettuces at Spartanburg County’s Naturally Fresh Farms. She plans to add additional cold storage to expand her market.
At the seven-acre Lover Farms in Pickens County, Brittany Arsiniega and Brit Hessler offer an escape to the farm, hosting events, teaching classes in foraging, and selling merchandise and produce. They’ll use ACRE funding for seed.
At Spartanburg County’s Paulownia Vineyards, Elaine Ryan is planting Bordeaux-style wine grapes – unusual in South Carolina – and pecans. She plans to use ACRE funding to hire a vineyard consultant.
Greg Brown plans to begin growing ginger and turmeric for the restaurant market at his Hopkins-area Greenleaf Farms in Richland County, where he currently grows asparagus and other produce.
“The future of agribusiness in South Carolina depends on new ideas,” said Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers. “These entrepreneurs will use what they’ve learned in the ACRE Curriculum program to build successful businesses and develop new markets in food and agriculture.”
SCDA founded ACRE in 2018 to help identify and nurture new ideas and businesses in the Palmetto State’s agribusiness sector.
In spring 2021, advanced agribusiness entrepreneurs will have the chance to compete for their share of $125,000 in funding. Information is available at acre-sc.com.
