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Freeze brings Florida packinghouses to a halt
Posted on: 1/25/2010
Many Florida vegetable packinghouses remained at a standstill Jan. 21 as Florida grower-shippers recover from nearly two weeks of freezing temperatures that devastated their crops. State agricultural officials say produce shipments have declined significantly and Florida’s growers will likely sustain hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. Packings have ground to a halt in Immokalee — the principal winter tomato and bell pepper growing region — and in Homestead and Belle Glade where growers grow and pack other vegetables such as green beans, sweet corn and squash. Fred Moore, a salesman for Five Bros. Produce Inc., Homestead, said no one has been running green beans, which suffered up to 95% damage. He said the Miami-Dade County production region also suffered up to 70% losses on yellow and zucchini squash. Five Bros. tried to run a crop of beans on Jan. 20 but because of the load having too much frozen and dehydrated damage, the packer after an hour had to stop and dump all the beans into the cull shoot, he said. “It is absolutely devastating what we have suffered here,” Moore said Jan. 21. Growers in Homestead, along with Belle Glade and Immokalee, which also sustained heavy freeze damage, grows beans through late April and early May. Spring bean plantings, however, remain unscathed and should start on-time as normal in early March, Moore said. On Jan. 21, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported light supplies of green beans, with bushel cartons at $45, compared to the market high of $11 at the same time last year. The freeze is affecting markets of Mexican green beans, with 30-pound cartons up to $32.95, more than twice the f.o.b. at the same time last year. Squash and cucumber supplies were too light to establish a market, the USDA reported on Jan. 21. On tomatoes, the USDA on Jan. 20 reported 25-pound cartons of loose mature greens 85% No. 1 or better from south Florida selling for $17.95 for 5x6s, 6x6s and 6x7s before handling charges, down from the $23.95 for 5x6s and $21.95 for 6x6s and 6x7s it had quoted Jan. 14. On Jan. 20, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson toured production areas in Homestead, Belle Glade and Immokalee. “It will be pretty bad,” Bronson said. “This week, we are at about 40% of where we were in shipments this time of the year last year, so we know how much damage that has caused us. The question is how much more will manifest itself when we get to the end of it as warm weather will show more damage.” Bronson said his agency isn’t able to release a final damage figure yet, but said his office is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies and grower groups to determine a final estimate that the state can take to Washington, D.C., when it requests disaster assistance. Bronson visited an 800-acre mature-green and roma tomato field north of Immokalee that sustained 100% loss, said D.C. McClure, vice president, farm manager and company owner of West Coast Tomato Inc., Palmetto. “I have been doing this since the mid-1970s and have never seen a freeze worse than this one,” he said. “This is as complete a kill as I have ever seen.” Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Maitland-based Florida Tomato Exchange, said some Immokalee-area plants and vines that growers had covered escaped serious damage. “We are not totally gone,” he said Jan. 21. “Homestead and the East Coast are still there.” Brown said an early estimate puts freeze damage on Immokalee-area tomatoes up to 70%. Bronson said the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Tallahassee, won’t receive final citrus damage numbers until early- to mid-February. After a Jan. 19 conference call with south Florida’s potato growers, Ken Wiles, general manager of River Packaging Inc., a division of Mack Farms Inc., Lake Wales, said the industry expects the state to suffer a 25% overall yield loss. “Losses will probably come more in yield reductions early in the season, during the February and March potatoes,” Wiles said Jan. 21. “As we get toward the end of March, from then on, it looks like it will be more of a normal crop.” Jessie Capote, vice president of operations and co-owner of J&C Tropicals Inc., Miami, said the freeze likely destroyed 80% of the boniato crop. Florida avocadoes, which typically begin ending shipments in January, escaped damage, Capote said.

Article Source: The Packer