Wilma to blow through the produce aisle

IMMOKALEE, Fla. — Shoppers can expect to pay much more for tomatoes and peppers, especially in grocery stores along the East Coast, for the next two months because Hurricane Wilma flooded fields and tore through crops in Florida.

Florida growers who choose to replant destroyed crops likely won’t be able to bring their produce to market for another two months. This will cause a temporary shortage of tomatoes and peppers since the state provides more than half of the nation’s fresh vegetables between the months of November and February, industry officials said Wednesday.

Only California annually produces more fresh vegetables than Florida.

“As the supermarkets come to expect those tomatoes and don’t get them those prices are going to rise,” said Ray Gilmer, a spokesman for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association.

After last year’s hurricanes ruined some Florida vegetable crops, the price of tomatoes went from $1.50 to $2 a pound to as much as $4 to $5 a pound. But the price didn’t go back down right away, even after the Florida crop returned to normal in early January, causing a small drop in consumer demand for tomatoes.

“Prices go up quickly but drop slowly,” Gilmer said.

Consumers may not see prices rise as dramatically as last year, however, because this year’s California tomato-growing season has lasted longer than last season, and Mexican tomatoes should begin flowing into the United States in December, said Reggie Brown, manager of the Florida Tomato Committee, which markets Florida’s tomatoes.

Brown said it was too early to guess how much prices would increase.

“The situation doesn’t appear to be as bleak as last year,” Brown said.

Wilma peeled off the corrugated steel roofs of vegetable packinghouses, and flooded tomato and pepper fields. Winds ripped off the plastic coverings of greenhouses, exposing delicate baby tomato and pepper plants to the burning rays of Florida sunshine after the storm.

“This is the worst time of the year for something like this to happen since we’re just starting the season,” said Pat Naughton, a customer service manager for TransGro, which has more than a dozen acres of greenhouses outside Immokalee. “This is our busiest time of the year.”

Last year, Charley and three other hurricanes caused $2 billion to $3 billion in damages to crops and infrastructure. Agriculture officials said that it’s too early to assess the destruction from Wilma but that it would likely be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Taxpayers again could be helping bail out the losses of Florida growers. Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture paid Florida growers about $600 million as compensation for their losses, said Terry McElroy, a spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The timing for growers couldn’t have been worse since many of the plants only had been in the ground since August or September. The hurricane also blew off or flooded the plastic mulch on which the beds of vegetables are planted.

Jamie Williams, an official with the Six Ls agriculture conglomerate, which grows tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in southwest Florida, said much of the company’s fields south of Naples were devastated.

Much of the damage to the vegetable crops was expected to be caused not only by winds but by flooded fields. Vegetable plants start to perish if submerged under standing water in their fields for more than two or three days.

“The plants are drowning right now. The problem is, there’s nowhere for the water to go,” said John Dunckelman, associate director of the University of Florida’s Southwest Florida Research and Education Center.