Ryan Ray
Twenty members of Congress signed a letter to the nation’s top agricultural official on Tuesday calling for federal assistance in the Florida’s fight against an infestation of Oriental Fruit Flies that threatens the nation’s wintertime supply of fruits, vegetables and nuts.
U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, the Florida delegation’s sole freshman Democrat, joined 12 Republicans and seven fellow Democrats to plead with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack for “immediate intervention” to help eradicate the pest, which attacks hundreds of varieties of crops grown in South Florida.
“It is of the utmost importance that the federal government act quickly to help eradicate this pest as rapidly as possible to prevent further destruction of our crops, and provide much-needed relief to our invaluable but delicate farming community,” the one-page missive reads. “… the Florida Congressional Delegation seeks your Department’s complete support at this difficult time, and asks that it provide all the necessary assistance to help improve a most difficult situation for a significant number of Floridians.”
The names Miami Republican U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo – with whom Graham has coordinated before – appear at the top of the letter’s list of signers, mirroring Miami-Dade County’s place at the center of the Asian fruit fly crisis.
Earlier on Tuesday, Commissioner Adam Putnam declared a state of agricultural emergency in Florida’s most populous county because of the threat that potentially ruined crops could pose to the state and nation’s agricultural economy.
The infestation has already triggered an 85-square-mile quarantine around core areas in South Florida where concentrations of the destructive insects have been detected.
Graham issued a prepared statement Tuesday after she joined the bipartisan call for federal help:
“Farmers are the backbone of North Florida and our state. When one farmer in South Florida is threatened by a pest or disease, it poses a threat to the entire state’s agriculture industry. We need all hands on deck, working together, to make sure we eradicate these flies before they spread any farther or cause more damage,” Graham wrote.
Other members of Congress who signed the Vilsack letter included rivals for the open U.S. Senate seat U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson and Patrick Murphy, as well as Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan and U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
