Western Palm Beach County farms have been hit with an average of 30 inches of rain in the last few weeks.
Photo provided.
Fresh green beans, a popular dish on the Thanksgiving table, are expected to be in short supply this Thanksgiving after vegetable and sugar cane crops in western Palm Beach County were wiped out by flooding.
Hurricane Irma, which made landfall in Florida on Sept. 10, drenched and flooded fields south of Lake Okeechobee in the Belle Glade and Pahokee area, damaging the cane and delaying its harvest. Then last week’s tropical system dumped more rain on the area, destroying such tender vegetables as green beans, sweet corn, and lettuces that were planted after Irma.
Fresh green beans, a popular dish on the Thanksgiving table, are expected to be in short supply this Thanksgiving after vegetable and sugar cane crops in western Palm Beach County were wiped out by flooding.
Hurricane Irma, which made landfall in Florida on Sept. 10, drenched and flooded fields south of Lake Okeechobee in the Belle Glade and Pahokee area, damaging the cane and delaying its harvest. Then last week’s tropical system dumped more rain on the area, destroying such tender vegetables as green beans, sweet corn, and lettuces that were planted after Irma.
Last week Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said Irma inflicted an estimated $2.5 billion in damage on the state’s agriculture industry.
John S. Hundley, vice president of Hundley Farms, which grows sugar cane and vegetables in the Glades said Monday, “The only thing that can be planted now and have anything for Thanksgiving is the radish crop. Lettuces, sweet corn, green beans, and cabbage will all be well after Thanksgiving. Green beans are always a big seller for Thanksgiving. There will be very tight supplies this year.”
On average, fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area’s muck soils and adjacent sand-lands have received 30 inches of rain in the last month.
“The rains have been worse than they were two years ago when we had the most rain since 1932,” Hundley said.
“Our employees don’t like it. There is nothing for us to do. They go home early or don’t come out at all,” Hundley said. “We are hoping we can have some good weather and hopefully hit the Christmas market which starts 7, 8 or 9 days ahead of Christmas.”
Sugarcane bends in the wind in Belle Glade during Hurricane Irma on Sept. 10.
Palm Beach Post Staff Photographer Lannis Waters.
Much of the area’s biggest crop, sugar cane, was flattened by Irma, and just when farms had dried out enough for heavy equipment to enter the fields, last week’s tropical system dumped more rain.
Run-off from Hurricane Irma is still rushing into Lake Okeechobee from the north. Since June, the area has been inundated with record-breaking rainfall. The lake has reached 17.16 feet, the highest level since after Hurricane Wilma in November 2005, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Monday.
U.S. Sugar spokeswoman Judy Sanchez said the company began harvesting Oct. 1, but last Wednesday, had to shut down both field and raw milling operations because of new flooding. The company harvests about 200,000 acres of cane in Palm Beach, Hendry, and Glades counties. Some of that is grown by U.S. Sugar and some by independent farmers.
“While we are having to start back slowly due to additional rain this weekend, we have been able to begin harvesting on some of our drier, more sandy soils,” Sanchez said Monday. “The sand drains more rapidly than our muck soils that are located closer to Lake Okeechobee.
Florida Crystals’ spokesman Marianne Martinez said Monday, “We had hoped to start our harvest on Wednesday, but the fields are extremely wet, so we have delayed until Thursday. That could still be postponed again, because of the wet conditions. There’s also more rain on the radar for the weekend. We have 140,000 acres of sugar cane to harvest.”
The Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida in Belle Glade expects to start harvesting 72,500 acres on Oct. 24. It typically starts its harvest later than the other two companies.