The tomato market is currently strong for growers in the Southeast.
By Clint Thompson
Tomato growers across the Southeast are enjoying high prices right now, which marks a significant change from March when Florida producers had to leave many in the field amid the coronavirus pandemic. That is not the case anymore, however, says Michael Schadler, executive vice president at the Florida Tomato Exchange.
“Market price has been high. Coming down a little bit the last couple of weeks, but overall, prices have been pretty good,” Schadler said. “That’s just a function of supply has been light out of Florida and supply has been light out of Mexico as well. We would have liked to have had a little bit better yields in Florida this spring. We’ve had yield issues that have limited supplies but the fact that market prices are high after what happened back in March and April, it’s real nice.”
Schadler attributes Florida’s poor supply to pest and disease pressure.
COVID-19 Impact
Florida tomato growers have experienced an up and down season. This is especially true for South Florida production impacted by COVID-19 when it struck in mid-March.
“It was a situation where we had never seen the markets turn off like that overnight. We’ve certainly gone through our share of bad markets over the decades, usually based on over-supplies coming in from Mexico and even over-supply in Florida. Having bad markets is nothing new,” Schadler said. “Having it come about in that way where everything shuts down, price didn’t matter at that point.”
Growers could not give their crop away. Tens of millions of tomatoes were lost. But to see the market recover, which will benefit other states like Georgia and Alabama, is encouraging to see.
“When we were looking at this thing in early April, when we were doing an assessment right around April 1 and going through two or three weeks in an unprecedented environment, we were thinking, ‘Man if this thing doesn’t turn around, we’ve got a big spring crop; the Florida spring crop is pretty big in April and May, we’re going to have devastating losses,’” Schadler said. “Right around April 5 or April 6, demand started to come back. I think what happened was, the buyers that sell into food service, when everything hit the fan in mid-March, they kind of shut down. I think they let the pipeline clear out a little bit. The pipeline was completely empty after the first week in April and they realized, obviously, there’s still demand for tomatoes.
“That demand came back a little bit, coupled with the fact that Mexico was quite light and Florida volume was lighter than normal. We had lower yields through the spring. We actually were able to bounce back for a big part of April and so far in May as well.
“As far as an industry as a whole, looking back over the six or seven months of the Florida tomato season, it’s going to average out to be a decent season for us.”
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.”
A severe drought in Mobile County, Alabama and Baldwin County, Alabama is not negatively influencing fruit and vegetable production, says Joe Kemble, Alabama Extension vegetable specialist.
“Most of the veggies down there are irrigated,” Kemble said. “I don’t know anyone that doesn’t irrigate, frankly, in that area.”
Irrigation is important in that area right now. In the most recent release of the U.S. Drought Monitor, parts of both counties are classified as ‘D2’ status or a severe drought.
“Mobile and Baldwin Counties, they’re opposite each other, Mobile Bay. They are definitely well under. I think there was a trending hashtag of #mobilethedesert or #desertmobile. Guys were saying how dry it is down there,” Kemble said.
There’s cause for concern, especially considering how much produce is grown in that area. Growers cater to a lot of road-side produce stands and farmers markets in that area.
“In that area, it’s pretty diverse, production wise. Large acreage wise, sweet potatoes are still a pretty important crop in that area, and to a lesser extent, some irish potatoes as well. After that it’s tomatoes, watermelons, corn are probably the staples in that area, as well as peppers,” Kemble said. “There’s a lot of road-side stands in those areas, farmer’s markets in that area. They tend to feed a lot of product into those. They’re always looking for a diverse background of crops. But I would say the major ones are still going to be the tomatoes, watermelons and sweet corn.”
Kemble said the crops are progressing well.
“I was speaking to a regional agent down there. He was saying things are on track,” Kemble said.
University of Georgia/UGA researcher Esther van der Knaap working in the greenhouse.
By Clint Thompson
University of Georgia plant biologist Esther van der Knaap has studied genes in vegetables for more than 20 years. She believes the more information that scientists can obtain about a vegetable’s morphology; referring to its size and shape; the better equipped plant breeders will be in creating new and better cultivars.
The lack of knowledge on morphological traits often hampers the efforts by plant breeders to create improved types. More information would greatly assist in the development of new cultivars in a variety of crops. That’s where van der Knaap’s work factors in.
“For breeders, when they develop a new variety, they need to maintain the proper shape and size of the produce, in addition to any novel trait that makes the new variety superior over an older variety. You can create new tomato varieties that are resistant to any disease that we’re facing right now. But if the new variety doesn’t produce a fruit with the proper dimensions, nobody will likely pick it up,” van der Knaap said. “Consumers wouldn’t recognize it and processors can’t process produce that is too large or too small or with unusual shapes. The morphology of produce is incredibly important.”
University of Georgia
Gene Knowledge
The knowledge of the genes has advanced the efficacy in tomato breeding programs because it enables the creation of improved cultivars that feature the appropriate dimensions of the produce. She discovered the different genes that aide in the development of tomato fruit shapes also influence other vegetables. These include potato tuber shapes, as well as the shapes of melons, cucumbers, leaves and grains.
Size and shape are important components because they are what consumers identify with when purchasing certain vegetables in grocery stores or at the farmer’s markets.
“In tomatoes, the smaller shapes like grape tomatoes or the cherry tomatoes are used more for salads. If you want to make sauces and soups, you purchase the roma tomatoes. Everybody uses tomato slices on hamburgers, and for those you take the large beefsteak tomatoes. They are nice for slicing. Consumers recognize produce and each type has a specific culinary purpose,” van der Knaap said.
She communicates her research findings in publications so that breeders can use the knowledge to develop better cultivars.
“You always have to create better cultivars when it comes to yield and drought or disease resistance. There are always new diseases emerging in plants and we have to stay ahead of them,” van der Knaap said. “Fortunately, in most cases, there’s always a better crop variety around the corner. We need to stay ahead of diseases as diseases emerge very rapidly, as we know now with COVID-19. Plants are no different from people when it comes to being susceptible to diseases that can be devastating.”
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.
Florida’s tomato industry is being crippled right now because of the coronavirus pandemic.
By Clint Thompson
With restaurants closed across the country due to coronavirus pandemic, little, if any, of Florida’s tomato crop is being harvested right now.
Bob Spencer, President of West Coast Tomato in Palmetto, Florida, said his company farms between 3,500 and 4,000 acres every year but estimates that he’s losing 90% of his business right now. Since about 70% to 75% of the state’s tomato crop is designated for the food service market, many of his farming colleagues are dealing with the same grim outlook.
“All of us are having to cut back and leave tomatoes in the field right now that we normally would have picked just because we’ve got to get through these stay-at-home orders across the country that have shut down the restaurants,” Spencer said. “We’ll make it through, and hopefully in the next two or three weeks, everybody will get through this situation safely. The safety of the public is our primary concern. When that gets taken care of, we’ll get back to harvesting, restaurants will get back open and business will get a lot better.”
West Coast Tomato staggers its plantings from the end of October through June every year to be able to harvest tomatoes every week. Unfortunately, Spencer’s business has dried up the last two weeks and he forecasts that’ll be the case for the next two to four weeks.
However, Spencer remains optimistic about the future of the industry.
“Eventually that will turn around. We’ve had a good year so far. This is a little bump in the road, but we’ll get through it,” Spencer said. “Successful businesses, you don’t get yourself in debt so when bad times come you can survive, you don’t have to worry about debt. No. 2, you always realize that anything can crop up and farming that’s the case. You’re prudent in what you do, and you try to manage it as best as you can.
“Once it re-opens, there’s not going to be a lot of the product in the supply chain. They’re going to be looking for product.”
This is not uncharted territory for Spencer and the tomato industry, who went through something similar not too long ago.
“We went through something similar 15 years ago at the end of the season. There was an outbreak of salmonella that was from Mexican tomatoes that was being imported into the U.S. When that happened, everybody in the country just stopped eating all tomatoes,” Spencer said. “We had a little bit of a similar situation back then. This is probably going to go on for a little bit longer, it’s in the middle of the harvest season.”
