By Clint Thompson
Hurricane Idalia’s financial impact on Florida is less than similar storms that have impacted the state; like Irma (2017) and Ian (2022). But that does not lessen the toll felt by specialty crop producers when the storm moved through North Florida a little less than a month ago.
Christa Court, assistant professor in the food and resource economics department and director of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Economic Impact Analysis Program, provided an update on the financial toll that Idalia left behind after moving through the region.
“I can tell you for Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Ian the production loss estimates were higher. That’s for a lot of different reasons. The area that was impacted by those stronger conditions of this storm, just because of the geography of the storm and the geography of the state, there was a smaller portion of the state that was impacted,” Court said.
“That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t just as significant of a situation for those areas to compare the overall losses from a storm that impacted a larger portion of the state or at a different time of the year or impacted different types of commodities. It’s lower than those estimates, but it’s lower for a variety of reasons, not necessarily suggesting it’s any less intensive of an event or important of an event for the areas that it did hit.”
Preliminary estimates show production losses caused by Hurricane Idalia fall in an estimated range of $78.8 million to $370.9 million. An estimated 3 million acres of agricultural lands were in the storm’s path, including row crops like peanuts and cotton, dairy and poultry farms, aquaculture operations and more.
Part of Court’s message last week when she spoke via zoom during a media conference was that communication remains key in relaying to Florida residents how the storm impacted the lives of the many farmers in its path.
“A lot of people don’t understand production agriculture in Florida or the extent of production agriculture here in Florida or where their food comes from. Really understanding, not only the footprint of agriculture in the affected region but the value of agriculture and its importance to the communities that have been impacted, I’m hoping that message will get out and will be in support of the fact we’re trying to get these communities back into production since they’ve been so significantly impacted,” Court said.
“This gives us an idea of the significance of the damage in the parts of the state that were affected by Hurricane Idalia. I think it also brings a voice to those communities.”