Florida cabbage is seeing some stronger pricing thanks to lower supplies and high demand. “Georgia and South Carolina got hit pretty hard with some cold weather. We had a small amount of damage from the freeze but it is not too bad. Everybody north of us also got hammered so I’ve already had a dozen calls this morning from people looking for cabbage but it’s not quite ready yet. Everybody is hunting for cabbage and greens,” says Hank Scott of Long and Scott Farms.
Scott hopes to start harvesting this week on the vegetable. This year also marks a return to cabbage production for Long and Scott, which stepped out of it for the first time last year in more than 40 years. “It was being overproduced and it was getting so cheap that you can’t make any money. We’d planned to go more sod and fewer vegetables but that didn’t work out so we’re going to go back into more vegetables such as cabbage,” says Scott, noting it is growing largely green cabbage but also some red cabbage as well.
Later planting
Production is also later. For Long and Scott, because it didn’t have the ground to get started earlier on cabbage planting, it had to wait for its fall pickle crop to come off before it could plant. It’s about a month later than when it would normally harvest which would have been around the first of December. The cabbage crop goes until early April--April 10 at the latest--and then it flips back over into pickle and corn crops around mid-April.
So where is this leaving demand? “It’s crazy for cabbage,” says Scott. Alongside Florida, Texas is in production of cabbage. California also grows cabbage but its supplies tend to stay local. “It doesn’t take the trip other vegetables do because it’s not a high-dollar crop,” says Scott.
As for those dollars, pricing is currently between $14-$15. “It’s been going up about $2/day since the freeze so hopefully, some growers can make money for a change. Before this, Georgia had pricing at about $9-$10 and that’s just about break even,” says Scott. “There are a lot of people growing cabbage in Florida but it’ll be another month or so before pricing levels out.”
For more information:
Hank Scott
Long & Scott Farms
[email protected]
www.longandscottfarms.com