Greenhouse lettuce production has its risks and rewards in Alabama. Jeremy Pickens, Alabama Assistant Extension Professor in Horticulture at Auburn University, cautions producers to do their homework before diving headfirst into this potentially rewarding venture.
“It’s a considerable amount of expense compared to field production. You just really need to know what you’re doing before you commit to it,” Pickens said. “The benefits of growing in a greenhouse are, you can turn out a crop faster. It’s going to be a high-quality crop. In many cases, there’s less pesticide use. But the downside is, it costs more money to grow indoors.”
Greenhouse Expenses
It is expensive just to build a greenhouse and operate it year-round. Pickens estimates to build and own a greenhouse can cost producers anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 depending on how many bells and whistles you want to accessorize the greenhouse with. Labor is a major expense as well. Labor can cost as much as 28 cents per head of lettuce.
Producers must also consider competition from states out west. California and Arizona account for 95% of all the lettuce produced in the U.S.
“It is a high-quality product and produced very inexpensively and can get shipped across the country in very little time. It is most often for chefs and be available in a bag, chopped product. It’s already triple rinsed, they don’t have to do anything with it but open the bag and go,” Pickens said. “I don’t think you need to compete head-to-head with those guys because you’re going to lose. They can grow it so much cheaper than we can just because of their great climate and economy of scale.”
Marketing
Those Alabama producers who follow through on lettuce production need to market their crop as a premium product if they are to be successful. They are selling local, fresh and flavor.
“There is a certain size pie, and you’re not going to make the pie any bigger. There’s a chance you could, but you’re trying to get a piece of it by maybe convincing a chef to switch over to your product. There are some opportunities in some of the more urban areas with these CSAs coming along for lettuce to make its way into a box. As far as selling it as a farmer’s market, it’s like anything, it’s got its risks. I don’t want to say there’s not an upside to it, but I wouldn’t go chasing for gold with it,” Pickens said.
Chard and cauliflower crops show signs of freeze injury.
By Pam Knox and Tim Coolong
Untimely freezes can cause tremendous problems for fruit and vegetable crops.
Fall freezes quickly put an end to the growing season for most fruits and vegetables. If freezes come earlier than expected or before the crops are ready for harvest, they can provide a devastating blow to yields and reduce the value of the crops. Spring freezes may destroy blossoms on plants that have recently broken dormancy, reducing yield by eliminating potential fruit or destroying young plants.
Growers are sometimes able to reduce the impact of freezes by using frost- and freeze-protection measures to increase temperatures near the crops and prevent damage due to freezing temperatures.
TYPES OF FREEZES
There are two main types of freeze that can occur in fields, and freeze-protection methods depend in part on what type of freeze is expected to occur.
Mustard greens that were cultivated prior to a freeze resulted in some plant damage.
An advection freeze is caused by cold and dry air moving (“advecting”) into the production area, replacing the warmer, moister air that was already in place. An advection freeze is commonly associated with moderate to strong winds, a well-mixed air mass that does not have a temperature inversion, and low humidity. Temperatures will drop below freezing and may stay that way for an extended period.
It is difficult to protect against an advection freeze because the wind blows added heat away from the crops and makes formation of protective ice from sprinklers difficult. The lack of a temperature inversion means that wind-moving devices like tall fans or helicopters do not have access to a warmer layer of air to mix with surface air. The dry conditions also mean that irrigation is often not effective at keeping temperatures above freezing, which can lead to ice loading on the plants as the sprinklers try to keep up.
Radiation freezes occur when the sky is clear and winds are calm to light. Temperatures drop because with clear skies, radiation from the earth’s surface can quickly allow energy to escape to space. The coldest air tends to flow downhill because it is denser than the air around it, pooling in the lowest-lying areas (sometimes known as “frost pockets”). Radiation freezes are often accompanied by a temperature inversion aloft. This is a layer of air above the surface that is warmer than the air near the ground.
One freeze-protection method is to mix warmer air down to the ground using fans or helicopters, keeping the surface air warmer. Frost-protection methods are generally more effective in radiation freezes than in advection freezes, especially when strong inversions with plenty of warm air are present. Sometimes a night with cold air blowing into an area results in an advection freeze occurring the first night followed by a radiation freeze the second night when the winds die down. Therefore, growers may need to be prepared for both types of freezes.
FREEZE-PROTECTION METHODS
If temperatures are not expected to be much below freezing, heating at ground level can be employed to keep temperatures higher. This can be done using orchard heaters or even burning debris or bales of hay in open areas of the field to be protected. This method can be helpful when a radiation freeze is occurring, especially when a strong inversion is present to trap the heat near the surface, but it loses effectiveness with strong winds. It also puts out a lot of pollution and can be expensive to maintain because of the fuel and labor needed to keep the heaters burning.
If a strong inversion is present, methods for mixing the warmer air down to the surface can be used. This can include both wind machines such as large fans or helicopters. Helicopters have the advantage of being portable but are expensive to operate. Wind machines can be permanent installations or can be mobile, but only cover a limited area. If the inversion is weak, a wind machine could make matters worse by increasing evaporative cooling through the movement of the air.
Irrigation can be an effective tool for freeze protection if it is able to be applied at a rate that “keeps up” with the freezing conditions. The irrigation is applied continuously to the crops, forming ice on the crops which releases heat to the air around those crops by the latent heat released by changing liquid water into solid ice. The plant material under the ice is kept near freezing by the ice cover and transfer of energy into the plant.
Row covers can provide plants with some protection from frost, wind and insects.
If the air conditions are windy, air will mix with the ice, forming cloudy ice that is less effective at protecting the plants, which reduces their ability to survive the frost. Clear ice is a sign that the freeze protection is likely working. If the air is low in humidity, irrigation is not very successful because most irrigation systems cannot put out water at a high enough rate to keep up with the effects of the cold air. If the dew point temperature of the incoming air is below about 22° F, then irrigation is unlikely to be effective. Even higher dew point temperatures are no guarantee that irrigation will work, especially in an advection freeze where wind is a factor.
Sometimes growers will use center pivots to irrigate prior to a freeze event. Center pivots move far too slowly to directly protect a crop as described above. However, in some cases when the soil is dry, adding moisture to the soil can help it retain heat from the day, which can provide some protection in the evening. When the soil is already wet, further irrigating it will not help.
Covering plants with plastic tarps or row covers has been used with varying success. A plant can be covered by mulch or a cover overnight to keep the cold air from hitting the plant. The cover (particularly clear plastic) must be removed the next day or sunlight will heat the cover, causing potential damage to the plant from excessive heat. Floating row covers that allow 2 to 4° F of freeze protection and have various degrees of light transmission can be purchased and easily moved around fields. Row covers also provide some protection from wind and insects. Mulch or plastic covers will be most effective when the ground has been warmed by the sun during the day. They are also aided by moist soil conditions, which help hold heat in the ground.
Other methods such as cultivating ahead of a frost or spraying chemicals to prevent frost formation on the leaves have been tried by some growers. However, they have not proven to be effective in field trials and could cause additional damage to the plants, so should be undertaken with caution. In some cases, cultivation can expose roots to freezing temperatures and cause further damage.
See secure.caes.uga.edu/extension/publications/files/pdf/B%201479_1.PDF for more information about freeze-protection methods and how to run a frost protection irrigation system.
Figure 1. Shallow subsurface drip irrigation is laid with a drip tape layer to a depth of 4 to 5 inches in organically grown lettuce.
By Tim Coolong
Subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) has been around for many years in a variety of different iterations. Most typically, SDI refers to a permanent drip system installed fairly deep (18 inches) and is used for irrigating agronomic crops such as corn or cotton.
In many cases, vegetable crops are too shallowly rooted for a traditional SDI system, but some processing tomatoes are grown using SDI. However, a shallow SDI system, where drip tubing is buried at a depth of 4 to 6 inches (Figure 1), may be a tool that both conventional and organic vegetable growers can use.
ADVANTAGES
For organic growers, the ability to use shallow SDI offers two main advantages. The first is that crops can still be shallowly cultivated during the season without worrying about cutting drip tape. Second, having drip irrigation buried can allow for wetting of the root zone without excessive wetting of the soil surface. During dry seasons, this can reduce weed pressure (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Acorn squash is grown with shallow subsurface drip irrigation (left) and surface drip (right). While this crop was grown conventionally with herbicide, notice the lack of grass weeds in the shallow subsurface drip irrigation plot compared to the surface drip. Earlier in the season, when this picture was taken, the surface drip-grown plants were slightly larger, but that difference subsided later in the season.
Studies have also reported an increase in rooting depth and fertilizer use efficiency with shallow SDI. Many companies make drip tubing layers. University of Georgia (UGA) research has even used bed shapers/plastic layers to form beds and lay buried drip tube without using plastic mulch. In studies conducted with shallow SDI during a single season, no difference was seen in flow rate or clogging due to roots growing into the emitters. To keep costs low, 10-mil thick drip tubing was used since researchers only planned to use it for a single season. More permanent SDI systems use much thicker walled tubing.
LIMITATIONS
While shallow SDI can be a good tool for helping organic growers reduce weed pressure and improve cultivation, there are some potential limitations. UGA studies found that when comparing shallow SDI to surface drip, transplants with smaller (i.e., shallower) root balls initially grew quicker when planted into surface drip plots — particularly when weather conditions were dry and hot — promoting stress.
Many of the studies were conducted on loamy soils. It is likely that the lack of capillary movement of moisture on sandy soils may limit the use of shallow SDI in those situations. Further, the shallow SDI system did not wet the surface adequately to germinate seeded crops.
Lastly, although leaks were not common, rodents did chew into the buried drip tubing on occasion. Nonetheless, based on experience working with shallow SDI, it is a useful tool for organic vegetable farms.
File photo shows strawberries after harvest. Howler fungicide works well in strawberries.
Howler fungicide from AgBiome Innovations is a product that harnesses the power of the plant microbiome to create a fungicide with multiple modes of action. It provides preventive, long-lasting activity on a broad spectrum of soilborne and foliar diseases and does the job for a number of specialty crops. For Florida and South Georgia growers specifically, it’s great for strawberries, onions, cucurbits and leafy greens. AgBiome Technical Service Manager Bond McInnes outlines some of the key diseases Howler works well on.
From the greenhouse through harvest, Howler fungicide can be used effectively at every phase of production. Learn more at agbiome.com.
A devastating hit to the South Florida’s produce industry by COVID-19 has not deterred Toby Basore from looking forward to next season with optimism.
“I don’t care where you’re at, if you went into your grocery stores during this, there wasn’t any toilet paper on the shelves. There wasn’t any Lysol or hand wipes. The cheaper meats were gone, poultry; you couldn’t find chicken or ground beef for a while. But if you went into the produce section, it was stocked,” said Toby Basore, co-owner of TKM Bengard Farms in Belle Glade, Florida, during a Farm Credit webinar on Thursday. “The farmers, we’ve done our part. I think that the worst thing that could happen is we all cut back on our acreage. There could be shortages. I’m an optimist. I’m hoping for things to get back to normal. Right now, our plan is to continue and look forward.
“Of course we’re going to meet with our customers and get with them right after Father’s Day. They tell us their needs. If they have cutbacks, we’ll cut back. We pre-sell everything so if our customers want more or less, that’ll be our business model.”
Pandemic Hits During Peak Harvest of Florida Crops
Basore is an optimist despite enduring the coronavirus pandemic at the peak of Florida’s harvest season. He said the farm produces of 8,000 acres, which includes lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower. It is the largest lettuce producer east of the Mississippi. But like fellow Florida farmers, Basore suffered during the pandemic.
“March April and May are huge months for Florida so it hit at a bad time. “A lot of the growers here were impacted by COVID-19, including ourselves,” Basore said. “We probably passed 400 acres of lettuce due to the outbreak of the pandemic.”
He estimates 60% of his crop goes to processors, which in turn is shipped to schools and restaurants; two outlets that were nonexistent during the pandemic. The rest goes to retail, which Basore said was a “lifesaver.”
Basore is hopeful for brighter days ahead.
“Hopefully, the president is right and we’re going to have a better third and fourth quarter and a great year next year. It’s an unknown. We think that our business model should be the same next year,” Basore said.
BELLE GLADE, Fla. – Lettuce is one of the top 10 vegetables cultivated in the United States and for good reason. Romaine, iceberg, leaf and butterhead types of lettuce are staples in refrigerators around the world. Used as a basis for salads, as a topping for burgers and sandwiches, as a bread substitute for wraps, and even as a garnish for elegantly plated cuisines, lettuce serves as a recommended source of extra nutrition, much-needed fiber and fewer added calories to diets.
But the crop has experienced devastation nationwide with the emergence of the deadly Bacterial Leaf Spot (BLS). It’s a disease caused by a pathogen known as Xanthomonas campestris pv. vitians (Xcv). This unpredictable disease can cause severe economic losses and devastate entire harvests. Currently, there is no control method.
University of Florida scientists at Everglades Research and Education Center in Belle Glade, along with other land grant universities and federal agencies, have been at the forefront of research since the disease emerged. Focus has been on studying BLS and how it destroys lettuce.
An $850,816 grant will fund the continuation of research led by UF/IFAS scientists in a multistate endeavor with Pennsylvania State University and the United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Services (USDA-ARS) in Salinas, California. The grant, managed by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service (FDACS) through the Specialty Crop Multistate Program of the USDA-AMS to UF/IFAS, is designated for the study of disease resistance in lettuce, to boost cultivar variations that are BLS-resistant through breeding and genetics, and to research BLS-lettuce interaction.
Germán V. Sandoya-Miranda, assistant professor of lettuce breeding and genetics at Everglades Research and Education Center, and overseer of the project as principal investigator, has been researching BLS since 2016.
Sandoya is joined by UF’s Calvin Odero, UF/IFAS associate professor of agronomy specializing in weed science as co-lead; UF/IFAS Extension Palm Beach staff; Pennsylvania State University’s Carolee Bull, a professor and department head of Department of Plant Pathology; Maria GorgoGourovitch, an Extension educator and Plant Pathology affiliate instructor at Pennsylvania State University; and lettuce plant breeder and geneticist Ivan Simko of the USDA-ARS in California.
“This is the first time that experts in plant breeding, genetics, bacteriology, and weed science partner to develop sustainable and long-term solutions to battle an unpredictable and devastating disease in lettuce”, said Sandoya. “I have intentionally brought together the leading experts representing the strongest possible group to work on this disease for a variety of geographic impacted areas and assorted farm-size growers.”
Cabbage is a strong commodity right now, selling for $20 per box, says farmer Bill Brim.
By Clint Thompson
The produce market is ripening with success for some commodities. Prices are incredibly high for some vegetables, while others are still struggling to compete with imports from Mexico, says Tift County farmer Bill Brim. The co-owner of Lewis Taylor Farms said watermelons, round tomatoes and cabbage are three commodities really doing well for farmers right now.
“I think watermelon prices are pretty good. We don’t have any ready yet. It’ll be two or three weeks before we’ll be ready,” Brim said. ““Tomatoes were $33 per box (Wednesday), I think for rounds. Romas are really bad. They’re terrible price because Mexico is pouring them in here. Grapes are bad too. Rounds, they must not have many because they’re like $33 per box. Of course, they won’t last that long or stay there. But if we could stay in the high 18s to the 20s, we’d be tickled to death.”
Brim expects to start picking his tomato crop in two weeks. Cabbage is also selling well at $20 per box.
Watermelon Shortage?
Watermelons are a hot commodity right now. Carr Hussey, a watermelon farmer in Alabama and Florida and chairman of the board of the Florida Watermelon Association, said the crop is already in short supply and that a watermelon shortage is likely by Memorial Day weekend next week.
Brim said he’s heard that the crop in Georgia is going to be way down compared to last season.
“I think it was such a bad deal last year, everybody lost their heinies,” Brim said. “They couldn’t even hardly give a watermelon last year. I got like 7 and 8 cents per pound. You can’t even grow them for that; 12 cents per pound is probably break even. It’s just so bad people said, I can’t lose any more money or I’m going to be out of business. If I do, I’m just going to go with my row crops and forget the watermelons.
“North Carolina’s going to be late too, because a lot of them got killed out in that last freeze. It might be pretty fair for us, hopefully, anyway.”
The watermelon market is ripening with success for farmers who have the crop to sell. Hussey said prices are around 20 cents per pound right now but could improve to 22 or 24 cents around Memorial Day weekend.
Brim also believes watermelon farmers in north Florida are going to be done harvesting earlier than they believed they would.
“They started pretty early down there; a bunch of them,” Brim said. “In the next two weeks, they should be done at about the time we’ll start.”
Fresh romaine lettuce on display at local grocery store. Credit: The Toidi / Shutterstock.com
ARS News Service
SALINAS, CALIFORNIA, May 13, 2020—Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have identified five Romaine lettuce varieties that both brown less quickly after fresh-cut processing and are slower to deteriorate postharvest.
They also are determining the genetic basis for deterioration. The researchers have identified the location of genes associated with postharvest deterioration of fresh-cut lettuce, and are in the process of identifying genes associated with browning, two economically important traits. This will speed up development of new Romaine varieties with better shelf-life because now lettuce breeders will be able to check that offspring carry these genes without needing to grow out and destructively test for browning and deterioration resistance.
Lettuces are the most popular, commercially produced, leafy vegetables in the world. They have a farmgate value of more than $2.5 billion in the United States in 2017, making them one of top ten most valuable crops for the country. But fresh-cut lettuce is a highly perishable product.
“The inability to evaluate for deterioration early in the process of developing new varieties has been a real impediment to breeding advances. Now having these molecular markers means that slow deterioration and eventually less browning can be more easily integrated into lettuce breeding, traits that are important economic considerations,” said research geneticist Ivan Simko with the ARS Crop Improvement and Protection Research Unit in Salinas, California, who led the deterioration study.
When you consider browning and deterioration ratings together, the best breeding lines for commercial production, and also for use as parents to develop new varieties are (in alphabetic order): Darkland, Green Towers, Hearts Delight, Parris Island Cos, and SM13-R2, which is a breeding line developed at the ARS lab in Salinas.
In addition, the researchers found the chromosome region that contains the genes for slow deterioration also contains four genes (Dm4, Dm7, Dm11, and Dm44) and one DNA region (qDm4.2) that code for resistance to downy mildew—one of the most-costly lettuce disease.
This colocation indicates a strong linkage between one or more of the four genes and the rate of deterioration. DNA-based markers can be used to develop new breeding lines with slow rate of deterioration and desirable combinations of resistance genes.
Deterioration is the rupture of cells within lettuce leaves, leading to waterlogging and the lettuce turning to mush. Browning is the discoloration of the edges of lettuce after cutting or tearing. Either development can spoil the leafy vegetable’s value by decreasing shelf life.
In an effort to control browning and prolong shelf life, lettuce processors have been turning to modified atmosphere packaging and flushing bags of cut lettuce with nitrogen gas to reduce oxygen levels in the bags.
But these practices are costly. They also can lead to other problems such as off-odors and, when coupled with high storage temperatures that promote anerobic bacteria growth on the bagged lettuce.
“Our study was aimed at finding lettuces that possessed low browning potential without the need for limiting the oxygen supply,” explained research food technologist Yaguang (Sunny) Luo, who led the browning study. Luo is with the ARS Food Quality Laboratory in Beltsville, MD.
Like deterioration, there was significant correlation between high resistance to browning and pedigree, which gives promise that lettuce breeders will be able to improve the trait and incorporate it into new varieties, Luo added.
The Agricultural Research Service is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientific in-house research agency. Daily, ARS focuses on solutions to agricultural problems affecting America. Each dollar invested in agricultural research results in $20 of economic impact.
Submitted by Gene McAvoy, Regional Vegetable Extension Agent IV Emeritus with UF/IFAS
“Up to the end of Feb our growers were having a banner year and it looked like this season would be one of those homeruns that come around every 5-6 years.”
Here is a report that I prepared on the state of S Florida ag and shared with officials. (Long read but may shed some light on how COVID-19 is impacting agriculture in our area.)
Markets
On Tuesday, March 24, a local broker says, everything changed. From brokers, orders stopped and everything got quiet. On Wednesday, March 25, it got super quiet.
Since then tomato volumes are down 85%, green beans are like 50% and cabbage is like 50%.
R.C. Hatton has plowed under 100 acres of green beans, around 2 million pounds, and 60 acres of cabbage, or 5 million pounds.
Florida’s tomato growers target 80% of their production to restaurants and other food service companies, rather than to supermarkets. In this sector, growers are walking away from big portions of their crop.
Tony DiMare estimates that by the end of the growing season, about 10 million pounds of his tomatoes will go unpicked.
Some crops like potatoes and oranges are faring well, whileother produce isn’t selling like it used to.
With a lot of people staying home and buying mostly comfort foods, products like peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers have actually slowed down incrementally,” said Chuck Weisinger, president of Weis-Buy Farms, Inc.
“The biggest challenge we have right now is getting the stores to start buying,” said John Stanford, farm manager at Frey Farms.
As you know. produce is highly perishable and three weeks into this, many companies around Immokalee, Florida have already had to empty their coolers and dump produce. One dumped 20,000 pounds a day last week, let that sink in… 20,000 pounds of tomatoes a day. They dumped a total of 100,000 pounds so far. This is from one farm.
Three weeks in, most farms have exercised triage dumping and emptying coolers and are terminating fields for which they have no foreseeable markets. They are concentrating on maintaining fields that they still have demand for, unfortunately, depending on the crop – this is only 20-50% of the total planted.
Impacts on Ranchers
The cash market and futures prices are lower than anyone can remember. One local rancher sold calves this week and averaged $250 per head at the Arcadia auction barn. A few weeks ago he would have received $450 per head average, and that constitutes below breakeven.
In normal times, strategy would be to hold calves until the crisis is over, and hope prices will take an upswing. But there is huge uncertainty about how long this will last. A major compounding problem is the dry conditions, and lack of reserve forage. These weather patterns would normally dictate early weaning of calves. Hay costs, when available, and low market prices are a formula for hardship.
The extended impact on ranchers will be the cows not breeding back on schedule. Holding calves longer in hot and dry conditions puts a strain on a cow’s reproductive system. This has been well-documented by University of Florida researchers.
Many growers are exploring alternative methods of moving product.
Sam S. Accursio and Sons Farms’ in Homestead packing house opened direct sales to consumers, selling boxes at $10 in each of the past two weekends. They had cars stretched for half a mile in front of the packing house and were able to move 120,000 pounds of Redland-raised squash, tomatoes, beans and cukes. They also partnered with a farmer out of Mount Dora, Florida who had 30,000 flats of unsold blueberries and sold these at 12 pints for $20. Similar efforts were conducted by Alderman Farms in Bonita Beach, Florida, Farmers Alliance in Immokalee and others.
Martin County, Florida opened a pop-up drive-thru market that saw 500 cars in one day. Traditional commercial farms in South Florida have been overwhelmed by the support for the sales at their packinghouses – all fruit that would have otherwise gone unsold if waiting on traditional markets to purchase.
Growers are still concerned that a large amount of produce seen in the supermarket comes from Mexico.
According to Bill Braswell, since March 1, the start of the Florida blueberry season, Florida has produced 6.1 million pounds through last Thursday April 2. In that same time period, Mexico has imported 17.4 million pounds into the U.S., according to a USDA report. Mexico market price is $12 for a 6-ounce flat delivered to Chicago which translates to $2.60 per pound.
Labor
Growers are taking aggressive steps to protect workers from COVID-19, including keeping truckers separate from on-farm labor.
They have been taking advantage of training resources and posters supplied by IFAS Extension and others.
Agents have also shared information on essential services exemption and supplying growers with template essential services exemption letters to facilitate movement of their essential staff and labor.
Labor shortages – reports indicate that COVID-19 has delayed the U.S. government’s processing of H-2A work visas. This will impact growers in central and north Florida and up the coast.
Food banks
Last week, growers in Immokalee alone donated more than 3 million pounds of vegetables to Harry Chapin food bank, overwhelming their ability to store, transport and distribute the produce – they had to call a halt.
Farm Share, which partners with more than 2,000 food pantries, churches, schools and other nonprofits throughout Florida, is running at maximum capacity, despite having 25 refrigerated trucks, six warehouses of between 10,000 to 35,000 square feet and 40 to 50 drop sites from Jacksonville, Florida to Florida City, Florida. They usually help more than seven million pounds of food reach the hungry and now are faced with moving a lot more.
Over the past two weeks, Wish Farms has donated 220,000 pounds of fresh strawberries — equivalent to 241 pallets or nine semi-trailer loads — to feeding Tampa Bay.
Growers are having a tough time adapting because everything is happening so quick. Faced with a highly perishable product, growers are struggling to survive right now, with picking, packing and shipping everything that they can. Because of the coronavirus, things have changed. Buyers are demanding tight security, heavier sanitation, distancing and more.
We have heard many ideas and suggestions from the public and even local officials – what many people fail to realize is that picking, packing, cooling, storing and transporting vegetables costs money, and growers who have already lost millions of dollars are understandably reluctant to throw good money after bad. It also costs money to maintain fields with no hope of sales in sight. Growers are disking up fields and maintaining just what they feel they have markets for. Unfortunately, this is only about 20% to 30% of the total acreage. Each acre of tomatoes costs $10,000 to $12,000 to grow and $5,000 to $6,000 to pick and pack. Unmaintained fields rapidly succumb to pests and diseases and soon become a breeding ground threatening the health of nearby fields that growers are trying to save for their remaining markets.
It is not only veggies, as of yesterday about 7.7 pounds of milk has been dumped by one Central Florida co-op (there are a few in Florida). Milk is sold by the pound so that is 900,000 gallons.
While I don’t have the exact amount from the other co-op I would expect their numbers to match ours in north Central Florida and South Georgia. Unfortunately, we can easily say that 10 million pounds of milk has been dumped throughout Florida.
There are efforts to help farmers all over our state. In the dairy industry, there is a grassroots group of passionate producers, processors, promotion people, school representatives and Extension agents trying to get more milk moving. This group includes people from Florida and Georgia, that in normal times might view each other as the competition (different co-ops and different promotion boards). These efforts range from delivering school lunches, buying and delivering milk to food banks and those in need; contacting schools to increase their milk in each meal, contacting legislators to allow whole milk in school lunches (we need help with this), and asking stores to stop limiting the purchase of milk.
People really have no concept of the amount of food we are taking about – Immokalee alone ships approximately 400 to 500 semis of vegetables a day from March through mid-May. This is 15,750,000 pounds of vegetables headed to market every day. Add to this Belle Glade, Palm Beach Co, Homestead and the amounts are staggering. I know of one grower in Belle Glade who is disking up 1 million pounds of green beans every three days.
South Florida vegetable growers supply more than 150 million people in the eastern U.S., from Miami to Chicago, from late October to mid-May.
Here is a resource a producer may be interested in sharing – this is a clearing house for finding food – donating food etc.
(HCCGA) — FDACS has created the attached form for producers to fill out with their product availability. Once submitted, FDACS will utilize to forward to their Fresh From Florida contacts, as well as the Florida Department of Corrections, food banks and make connections with other State Departments of Agriculture in hopes of providing market opportunities to move product during the Coronavirus pandemic.
