By Clint Thompson
One major hurricane is enough to devastate a farming operation. How about two in less than a two-week span? It’s enough to rattle any specialty crop producer.
L&M Family Farms has farming operations throughout Florida and one in Georgia. It was hit hard by Hurricane Helene when it moved through North Florida and South Georgia on Sept. 26 and 27. It was also impacted by Hurricane Milton’s trek across Florida on Oct. 9. Adam Lytch admitted, “it’s a lot to take,” for farmers like himself.
“I think the area that it hit in the central part of Florida along that I-4 corridor, it was really rough on the vegetable and tomato guys. The berry guys were obviously hit hard on their plastic. Some of them still had some plantings not done yet,” Lytch said. “It’s going to be an interesting fall. There’s going to be some up-and-down periods of supply.”
L&M Farms has five farming locations and three warehouse locations in Florida along with location in Moultrie, Georgia. It farms peppers, cucumbers, squash, eggplant, chili peppers, potatoes and onions. Its fall vegetables were largely not spared.
“What I’ve been telling everyone, we’ve been spared nowhere. Helene hit us in northwest Florida in Branford and obviously in Moultrie, Georgia. We were fortunate in Branford that it stayed as far west of us as it did, and when it came ashore in Georgia, the eye of the storm went to the east of us. We were on the better side of it in Georgia. We have damage in both places, but we’re really not sure how much it is; 10%, 20%, 30%, depending on what crop it is but significant,” Lytch said.
“In central and south Florida, Palmetto, Ruskin, LaBelle and Immokalee, we got hit with Milton and also in Palatka and Northeast Florida, we were just in the beginning stages of planting up there but still just got a tremendous amount of rain.”