Farmers' concerns grow as hurricane season arrives

If ever there were an embattled group of people who don’t need another hurricane, it’s farmers in Southwest Florida.

Vegetable farmers in the five-county area of Collier, Lee, Hendry, Glades and Charlotte counties saw $200 million in crop damages from Hurricane Wilma last year. Peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, watermelon, squash — Wilma’s winds pulverized them all as the storm made landfall in southern Collier County on Oct. 24, then moved inland over the farms. The 120 mph winds shook most of the grapefruit off the citrus trees and nearly half of the oranges.

Now with the 2006 hurricane season predicted to hurl at least five more severe storms at the U.S. mainland, farmers are jittery.

“We are as prepared as possible. There’s not a whole lot you can do,” said Jay Clark, interim executive vice president and CEO of Florida Mutual Citrus, which represents citrus growers.

On top of crop losses, the past two hurricane seasons sent the killer citrus canker swirling back into circulation after near eradication. And last year, a new devastating bacteria called “greening” spread by the psyllid bug surfaced in South Florida, striking citrus trees and fruit.

As a result of the piling on of calamities, Florida citrus production plunged to 153 million boxes this season from 240 million previously, said Clark.

“It’s a pretty tough situation right now between diseases and hurricanes,” he said. “Some growers just decided it’s not worth the battle and just go ahead and cash in.”

Gene McAvoy, a vegetable agent with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences extension office in LaBelle, remembered Wilma’s attack on the vegetable crops.

“You could go down the road and in one place the plants were snapped right off and others it looked like they were sandblasted. The stems stayed put but the leaves were stripped off,” he said. “In other cases it was flooding.”

Only about $100 million, or half of the Southwest Florida vegetable losses, were insured.

But Wilma didn’t stop at smashing the vegetables.

“We lost a lot of fruit. Maybe more than 70 percent of the grapefruit and 30 percent of the oranges,” said Mongi Zekri, a citrus agent with the University of Florida’s IFAS.

Wilma’s destruction to trees was intermittent. “Some of the trees were uprooted but it wasn’t a problem for every grower,” Zekri said.

Some say that with Florida land at premium prices and developers’ bulldozers spring-loaded to clear the way for more houses, farmers are facing the temptation to take the money and run.

“There’s a ready market for them to sell,” Clark said.

Charles Obern, who has farmed vegetables just east of Immokalee for 14 years, had $2 million in uninsured crop losses from Wilma last year.

“The best thing we can do is hope we don’t have another hurricane,” said Obern, who grows specialty vegetables on his C&B Farms just east of Immokalee. The U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn’t insure specialty vegetables such as Italian eggplant, jalepeno peppers and herbs, which is what Obern grows.

A hint of anger still hangs in Obern’s voice as he recalls last year’s catastrophe.

“We were already harvesting the basil and jalepenos and everything else was right on the verge. We had 1,500 acres ready and Mother Nature took it all,” he said.

Obern had to borrow money to stay in business this year.

“I don’t have any choice. I’ve got to farm. Either that, or I will sell my place,” he said.

But the calamities that have buckled some farmers have made business more profitable for others.

The decrease in the supply of citrus created a skyrocketing increase in prices. “Three years ago you would hear 70 cents a pound for solids. Now it’s $1.70 pound,” said Zekri, referring to citrus. “It is a good thing for farmers if they have the fruit.”

Fritz Roka, associate professor agricultural economics at IFAS, said there is still much for farmers to be optimistic about.

“Futures prices for the near month are double what they were in November 2003,” he said, adding that futures are a reflection of how high prices could go.

“Prices could be up and if people decide to come back, there are new opportunities,” he said, pointing to mechanical harvesting.

Only 3 percent to 5 percent of citrus farmers use mechanical harvesting today. If others begin the practice, it could make harvesting easier and more profitable, especially in today’s labor market.

Because many farm laborers stopped picking crops and turned to construction work after the 2005 hurricane season, this year’s farmers are being forced to pay up to 30 percent more to get their crops picked.

“They are having to pay more to entice them,” Zekri said.

While employees who worked in the package plants were out of work after Wilma, there was plenty of work clearing the fields and replanting vegetables, farmers said. But many of the 15,000 migrant workers didn’t arrive in Immokalee after Wilma, because they had heard there were no jobs.

That left farmers short-handed at a time they needed workers the most.

And many of the workers who turned to construction after last year’s hurricane’s haven’t returned to farmwork.

“A lot of labor went to putting on roofs,” Obern said.

Clark sums up what farmers are feeling as the 2006 hurricane season begins.

“We really don’t need another hurricane and we don’t need another disease bouncing in on us.”