Hurricane Debby, which was downgraded to Tropical Storm Debby following landfall in Florida early yesterday, thankfully looks to–initially at least–have little impact on the state's growing operations.
It's early days in terms of assessing the impact of Debby, says Christina Morton, director of communications for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association. "FFVA has been communicating with growers around the state, and since the impacts of Debby are still being felt across much of North Florida, we will know more in the coming days as fields dry out and growers are able to get out and assess the damage, if any," says Morton. "Florida's fruit and vegetable season gets underway in November, so the timing of this storm means we anticipate no widespread, significant damage for our growers."
Nick Bernal at Seasons Farm Fresh in Miami says there isn't much damage in southern Florida. "We got some wind/rain over the weekend. There could be more damage for the central/northern Florida crops such as citrus," says Bernal.
While initially called to be a Hurricane, Debby was downgraded to a Tropical Storm yesterday.
Byproduct of rain
Some produce growers and shippers are welcoming byproducts of Debby. "In our operation, it will most likely have minimal impact. In fact, it might bring much-needed precipitation to our northwestern Virginia farms," says Rob Reesor of Rouge River Farms, which has sweet corn growing operations in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and Ontario, Canada.
Alan Goldberg of A&B Tropical Produce agrees. "We were supposed to get heavy rain conditions here–they were forecasting flooding and although we got some rain, the heavy bad weather never materialized for us," he says, noting crops such as local dragon fruit, avocados, guavas and more would have benefitted from those rains. "The rain was welcome because it was dry here. We hadn't had much rain in July. There were some heavy rains in early June but that's almost two months ago."
That said, at press time the storm was still making its way through to Georgia and South Carolina where growers and shippers await word on if and how it will impact growing in those states.
For more information:
Christina Morton
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
https://www.ffva.com/
Nick Bernal
Seasons Farm Fresh, Inc.
https://seasonsfarmfresh.com/
Rob Reesor
Rouge River Farms
https://www.rougeriverfarms.com/
Alan Goldberg
A&B Tropical Produce
www.abtropical.com