• Home
  • About
  • CSA Providers
  • CSA Shares
  • CSA’s
  • Farmers Markets

Redland Rambles

You are what you eat. Do you eat where you are?

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Extension Open House
Tomato madness! »

Long live Florida 47

March 1, 2012 by marian33031

Locally grown round red slicers.

Round and red, and kind of ordinary looking, the slicing tomatoes in your CSA share box a few weeks ago didn’t seem very special, did they? But they are, and what made this year’s crop different is the way it was grown — in pots of soil, not directly in the ground. (The variety itself, Florida 47, is a commercial hybrid that’s been around for a long time, and is known as a good producing plant.)

Dan’s field of tomatoes in pots.

Farmer Dan raised the Florida 47s one plant per container, dozens of rows marching across a field blanketed with shiny black landscaping cloth, hundreds of staked tomatoes filling up three and a half acres. Why grow in pots? Because the land Dan had to use for growing, across from the Keys Gate Market Garden, was former swampland filled in with rock and even chunks of concrete, thin soil supporting only weeds. “Seven, eight, ten feet of fill instead of soil, and it was absolutely impossible to grow anything there,” Dan explained. Thus hundreds of pots, growing plant nursery style — a quick solution to the no-soil problem. (Plus, it was also the quickest way to get the operation certified organic.)

Read the fine print. This tomato came from Mexico. And people bought it because it’s cheap.

The tomatoes were delicious and beautiful, but financially the crop was a disaster. Startup costs were much higher than if he had planted directly into a fertile field. The potted plants required a lot of input — fertilizer and insect control sprays — plus you have to take into account the cost of soil, pots, landscaping cloth, irrigation and labor. “It cost me seventeen thousand dollars gross to set up, and my net was damn near nothing,” Dan grumbled.

Just as Dan was starting to harvest a few weeks ago, round red organic tomatoes from Mexico flooded the local market. (You might have seen them at area stores.) Thanks to NAFTA, the dollar-peso exchange rate, and low labor costs, organic tomatoes from Mexico were wholesaling for a lot less than what Dan was asking for.

No way he could make a profit. And he was stuck with bushels of tomatoes he had to unload. So he sold them at cost to farmer Margie of Bee Heaven Farm, and everybody in her CSA, large and small shares alike, got round red tomatoes. And, there’s Florida 47s to be had at the Keys Gate Farmer’s Market on Saturdays, and Pinecrest Gardens Farmers Market on Sundays, while they last.

Tomatoes left to rot.

It’s not just organic growers who gambled and lost hard this season. I saw a field off Krome Ave. and SW 168 St. where the grower didn’t even bother harvesting his tomatoes. He left his crop to rot on the vines. Half the field was brown and dead, like it went through the worst freeze — and in the absence of recent cold weather, a sign it had been doused with herbicide. Why bother to spend more for labor to pick the crop when he was already in the hole raising it? (Food activists may want to chime in about holding off on chemicals, and allowing people to come glean fields to salvage food.)

Mexican produce aside, growing organic tomatoes in pots was an interesting experiment, but not one Dan cares to repeat any time soon. “It’s not sustainable,” he said. He is sticking with growing slightly more profitable green beans grown in a field of real dirt. It’s a gamble he knows how to win a bit better, providing there’s no hard winter freezes. “You want to know how to make a little money in farming?” Dan asked. “Start with a LOT of money.” And he laughed long and hard at his familiar joke.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in farm, farmer/grower, food, photo, politics, vegetables | Tagged Dan Howard, NAFTA, tomato | 1 Comment

One Response

  1. on April 4, 2012 at 9:46 pm macontr

    Great post, Marian!

    I learned today that our Homestead/ Redland tomato farmers may have finally been defeated by NAFTA. It has chopped away at US farmers for more than 15 years, until it seems they are now falling. There may be no one growing tomatoes in the Redland next year, after more than a century! Lots of small amd medium sized Mexican farmers have gone out of business too. Only the big guys are doing the real damage in Mexico. (Some of them moved there from the US ironically.)
    So, now we have farmers going out of business, an immigration crisis, and what will happen to the Redland farms? Subdivisions with names like Brandywine Farms, and streets named Florida 47, Better Boy, and Beefsteak; all that is left of the Redland tomato industry.

    Looks like the US is being forced by its own policies to become the world’s consumer, and everyone else will produce for the US to consume. That is the direction we have been heading, and now it seems inevitable. After the crisis of Pearl Harbor, the President asked everyone to produce for the country, and 40% of all vegetables came from home Victory Gardens. After the crisis of 9/11, President Bush asked everyone to to consume for the country- go shopping at the mall. Draw your own conclusions.



Comments are closed.

  • Recent Posts

    • Remembering Hani Khouri
    • 5th Annual Redland GrowFest!
    • Chefs’ Local Cookoff Challenge
    • Sea of seedlings
    • Jim Ewing presents at GrowFest!
    • Adventures of a Farm Apprentice
    • GrowFest! demos and presentations
    • OFF vs. BHF CSA
    • How does the Oriental Fruit Fly Quarantine affect us?
    • GrowFest! is a go!
    • Oriental Fruit Flies in Redland Trigger Quarantine
    • Lychees in the morning
    • Ugly veggie love (NSFW)
    • Plethora of peppers
    • Saucy Kohlrabi
  • Archives

  • Frequent Tags

    Art Friedrich Arturo Gonzalez avocado avocados Bee Heaven Farm bees black sapote brunch Brunch in Paradise Charles LaPradd chickens county budget county commissioners csa Dan Howard Dinner in Paradise Earth Dinner Earth Learning edible South Florida Extension Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens Farm Day Farmer Margie Pikarsky farmers market Fruit and Spice Park fundraiser Gabriele Marewski greenhouse GrowFest! Hani's Mediterranean Organics Hani Khouri heirloom tomatoes holiday Katie Edwards laurel wilt Little River Market Garden Local Links lychee mango Margie Pikarsky Marty Mesh Melissa Contreras Miami Herald Miguel Bode movie Muriel Olivares Nick Pikarsky Paradise Farms Paradise Farms Organic Pinecrest Gardens Farmers Market Possum Trot Nursery redbay ambrosia beetle Redland GrowFest! Redland Mediterranean Organic Redland Organics Robert Barnum Roots in the City share Slow Food Miami small farms conference Sous Chef 2 Go Steven Green Teena's Pride Farm Teena Borek Three Sisters Farm Tim Rowan UDB UF/IFAS UF/IFAS Cooperative Extension Upper East Side Farmers Market Urban Oasis Project Whole Foods Will Allen Worden Farm zoning
  • Blogroll

    • A Garden on the Bay
    • Annush on the Causeway
    • aPieceOfGarden
    • Art Loves Farms
    • Bee Heaven Farm's Blog
    • Broadfork Farm
    • Eating Local in the Tropics
    • Edgy Veggie
    • Food For Thought
    • Fresh From Florida
    • Gardens of TROY
    • Girl In Miami
    • Greener Miami
    • https://ediblesouthflorida.ediblecommunities.com/food-thought/memoriam-hani-khouri-businessman-chef-goatherd
    • Hungry Filmmakers
    • La Diva Cucina
    • Local Food South Florida
    • Mango & Lime
    • Miami Dish
    • Our Half Box
    • Red Roots – Local Goodness
    • Short Order
    • The Genuine Kitchen
    • The Lettuce Farm
    • Thyme for Food
    • Tinkering With Dinner
    • Words from Worden Farm
  • Contact

    • Marian Wertalka
  • Local Growers

    • Bee Heaven Farm
    • Florida Keys Sea Salt
    • Going Bananas
    • Green Groves Organic Farm
    • https://ediblesouthflorida.ediblecommunities.com/food-thought/memoriam-hani-khouri-businessman-chef-goatherd
    • Little River Cooperative
    • Paradise Farms Organic
    • PNS Farms
    • Redland Organic Herb Farm
    • Redland Organics
    • Teena's Pride
    • Three Sisters Farm
    • Verde Community Farm & Market
    • Worden Farm
  • Local Links

    • Blind Tastes
    • Bordercross
    • Dade County Farm Bureau
    • Earth Learning
    • edible South Florida
    • Florida Small Farms Conference
    • Fruit and Spice Park
    • Gaby's Farm
    • Help Yourself!
    • Les Dames d'Escoffier
    • Meldy Hernandez Yoga
    • Miami G.R.O.W. Project
    • Michael's Genuine Food and Drink
    • novae gourmet
    • Permaculture Miami
    • Redland Riot
    • Robert is Here
    • Schnebly Redland's Winery and Brewery
    • Slow Food Miami
    • Sous Chef 2 Go
    • T.R.E.C. UF/IFAS
    • The Greater Everglades Foodshed
    • The Market Company
    • UF/IFAS Extension
    • Urban Oasis Project
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 626 other subscribers
  • Copyright©2009-2015 Marian Wertalka

    • Register
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.com

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • Redland Rambles
    • Join 133 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Redland Rambles
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: