Ryan Nicol
Florida’s farmers are feeling the impact of Tropical Storm Eta, which has left a trail of rain and flooding on what’s already been an especially wet season.
“We’ve been wet for the last few weeks and were just really starting to get back in the field for what I would call ‘normal’ days,” said Keith Wedgworth of Wedgworth farms. “But Saturday the rains came.”
That rain fell through the next several days in South Florida, and farmers are now dealing with the effects as they try to salvage crops in the field and move back to a normal planting pattern. While some environmental groups have accused the state’s sugar farmers of getting special privileges in terms of drainage, Wedgworth says the buildup of rain this fall has significantly impacted his operation.
“Through Monday or Tuesday, we were on and off getting rains — five, six inches of rain over those three or four days,” Wedgworth said.
“It’s flooded. All the mills are shut down. I’m hoping to get back later this week but it will probably be the beginning of next week before we can get back into the fields and start doing anything.”
Wedgworth stressed that the downpour from Eta wasn’t just a problem in isolation, but that it’s compounding issues stemming from a wetter-than-normal season.
“Usually in October and November, you start drying out through the wintertime coming out of the summertime daily rains,” Wedgworth explained. “So it’s very uncommon — before the tropical storm — for it to be this wet this time of year. Then you throw the tropical storm on top of it. It just really magnified how wet it is around here.”
“It’s really adding insult to injury,” added Rep. Rick Roth, whose family has decades in the farming industry.
“We’ve planted about 50% of our normal plantings for September, October and this far into November. So it’s really been a very bad year. It reminds me of Tropical Storm Gordon in 1994 where we got 11 inches of rain in three days from a tropical storm.”
Roth explained Eta itself wasn’t as bad as Gordon, but that the cumulative effect was similar.
“We only had three-and-a-half inches this past weekend. But we’ve just been inundated with rain all along, so we really are not able to get into the field and plant and the crop looks like hell.”
Other areas south of Lake Okeechobee dealt with eight inches of rain or more, according to data from the South Florida Water Management District.
The Representative said his operation wasn’t completely flooded out by the storm. He expressed optimism they could resume their normal workload soon, but that the damage had already been done.
“With four days of dry weather you’ll be back in a normal planting mode. But we are so far behind getting started for the season,” Roth said.
“We planted 80 acres of sugarcane and probably are going to lose that. So it’s going to be a really bad planting season, not only for vegetable crops but also for sugarcane. There’s no such thing as catchup in agriculture. You’re going to stay behind.”
Wedgworth seconded that assessment.
“It’s kind of like a domino effect. You have these sugar mills that are running 24 hours a day, and you’ve got a certain window that you have to get all your cane in it. So it just really delays when we’ll be able to finish our crop once springtime comes.”
Wedgworth also warned the excessive rain this season could impact the consumer, especially with the holidays fast approaching.
“You’re coming up to the point where they start harvesting stuff for Thanksgiving. And if you can’t get into the field to get it, or if the floods have flooded the beans out or the corn out, you’re losing you opportunity to get it there for the Thanksgiving holiday,” Wedgworth said.
“If there’s no crops to be had in the grocery store, grocery stores will raise that price up.”
Roth concurred, but said he hopes other farming regions in the country can pick up the slack where possible.
“There will be some shortages and higher prices, but some of it you may never see because you have production in other areas,” Roth said.
“It’s going to cause some shortages but I think it’s going to be short-lived.”
