Back in July of this year, an article written by Mark Hudson with the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), hi-lighted Agriculture in the Sunshine State. And while he noted Florida’s recognized signature crop is citrus, there are other significant commodities.
This of course includes vegetables, where the state ranks fourth among all states in total vegetables harvested acres. Most of these crops are grown beginning in the fall under subtropical growing conditions.
Hudson noted another significant industry is floriculture and bedding, nursery, sod, food crops grown under glass or other protection, and mushroom crops. The 2017 Census of Agriculture showed that Florida ranked second among all states with value of sales totaling $1 billion, and ranked first in sod value of sales totaling $184 million.
Of course row crops are grown too, including peanuts, cotton and corn. Florida also led the country in sugarcane production in 2017 with 15.8 million tons of sugarcane for sugar.
When it comes to livestock production in Florida, there were 21,469 operations with cattle inventory totaling 1.64 million cattle and calves with 882,000 beef cows. Florida’s goat inventory, especially meat and other goats, showed a total of 61,159 head compared to 52,052 in the 2012. This is a growing industry in the state.
To read more about Agriculture in the Sunshine State go to our website, southeastagnet.com.