By Clint Thompson
Florida’s tomato industry was one of many crops impacted by the recent freeze events. Preliminary estimates of losses to the tomato industry reported by Ag Commissioner Wilton Simpson were $164.2 million.
But it should not take long before the crop rebounds this year, according to Robert Guenther, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange.
“I came down to South Florida (recently) and toured around some of the farms. Yes, there was significant damage, but we’re still getting tomatoes off the vines. But I can see as we get further into March, in particular, the market’s going to be pretty tight; because of availability,” Guenther said.
“There’s going to be some regrowth in some of these plants. We’re still getting product off the vines. I think we’ll probably see more back to normal when we get into middle April and into May. That’s when we’ll probably see more normal levels of production, because we’ll have both central Florida and part of south Florida in Homestead and Immokalee still producing at that time.”
Winter Freeze
Low temperatures and high wind speeds during the weekend of Jan. 31-Feb. 1 were part of a cold winter that wreaked havoc on Florida’s crop production.
“Certainly, we got our fair share of it. It was just a unique event; three or four straight days of that type of temperature down into South Florida,” Guenther said. “For the most part, the growers are continuing to move forward by harvesting where they can and making sure they have consistent quality coming out of Florida.”
Preliminary estimates to Florida agriculture totaled more than $3.1 billion. These estimates draw on data from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, the Florida Census of Agriculture, USDA Market News, UF-IFAS Preliminary Freeze Event Assessment, early survey and early communication between FDACS, industry leaders, and individual producers who are currently engaged in large-scale recovery efforts.
A copy of FDACS’ preliminary estimates can be found here.