Hurricane and weather-induced issues aside, various other challenges continue to vex grower-shippers in South Florida.
Jeff Wasielewski, commercial tropical fruit extension agent for the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension in Miami-Dade County, mentions a full slate, including “labor shortages, land prices, water levels, pest problems, and foreign competition, which are all factors that make it difficult to be a successful grower in Miami-Dade County.”
Cruz Castillo, salesman for Jalaram Produce Inc., Homestead, FL, points out another hot button issue: the competition from imports against Florida-grown commodities.
He cites tomatoes as a prime example of the imbalance, pointing out that he’s seen 25-pound boxes from Mexico selling to distributors for as low as $4, when it costs a minimum of $8 for Florida farmers to even break even on the same size box.
While imports keep prices low, and this certainly benefits consumers, growers simply cannot earn a living.
To bring this message to the masses, once again, South Florida vegetable farmers—whose primary season is winter and have been hit hard by Mexican imports—took their tractors to the street in Doral, FL, in a march calling for fair trade, not free trade.
Jalaram Produce has also been affected by stricter pest control policies, which prevents the company from shipping guavas to specific markets.
“We don’t have a facility to treat our guavas, so we can’t ship to Texas and California,” Castillo comments. “We used to ship a lot there,” he says, but revamped regulations prohibit “certain products that come from Florida.”
This is an excerpt from the most recent Produce Blueprints quarterly journal. Click here to read the full article.
