By Clint Thompson
The Florida Strawberry Growers Association’s (FSGA) presence at last week’s Global Produce and Floral Show in Atlanta is a sign to the industry that Florida producers are rebounding from Hurricane Milton’s devastation a couple of weeks prior.
“The concern I think to everyone is, ‘Are we okay?’ I just wanted to make sure everyone knows that our growers are working daylight to dark catching up, repairing and making sure they get back on track,” said Sue Harrell, director of marketing for FSGA. “They’re strong. They do it every year. No matter what happens, we seem to be able to put out a great crop.”
Crop Vulnerability
When Hurricane Milton made landfall on Oct. 9 as a Category 3 storm, it impacted various crops in Florida’s agricultural industry. Strawberry producers had just begun planting this year’s crop, leaving opportunity for the storm to wreak havoc on plants and plastic in the fields.
“A lot of fields were damaged. As far as severity, it depended on your location. Some were hit a little worse than others with the flooding. It took a few days for the water to go down so they could get in and actually see their damage,” Harrell said. “Plastic can be replaced as long as they have the supplies to do it with, and they seemed to have been able to find that. I know our organization helped get generators coming in. The commissioner of Ag helped with that, to help get the coolers back with power so they could cool the plants that they had inside.
“There’s so many different aspects to our organization and our business that we have. We’ve got plastic to dispose of. Our organization is helping to organize dump trailers so growers can actually dispose of all of that. It’s just a lot to think about. It’s a snowball effect.
“It would impact the state if something really happened to our industry. It would affect everyone if our crop was devastated.”