ST. PETE, Fla. — Florida's agricultural industry took a big hit from Hurricane Ian. Nearly 5 million acres of agricultural land were affected by Hurricane Ian.
The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Economic Impact Analysis is now looking at the likely production loss.
Christa Court, Assistant Professor of Regional Economics in the Food and Resource Economics Department, led the report. They categorize production loss as the change in the flow of money to growers and ranchers. The study found the industry could be looking at a loss between $787 million and $1.56 billion.
"That's just those acute impacts, right. So it doesn't tell us anything about what might happen in the weeks to months as we really clean up and see the medium or long term damage," she said.
UF/IFAS started the reports in 2016. They're mostly done after hurricanes or freeze events.
"I think one of the things that we're hoping in learning each time is, you know, how do we make Florida agriculture more resilient to these types of events in the future. So we'll just continue the research down that line as well, and hope that each you know each unfortunate disaster that we go through. All of us as a state are learning from it," Court said.
Just off of one of the most traveled roads in St. Pete sits a small farm going against the norm. Shannon O'Malley, the CEO of Brick Street Farms said they're growing vegetables in a new way.
"Since we use hydroponic growing and climate control, we grow 50% faster than traditional soil-based agriculture. So to give you an example, this property grows the equivalent of 68 acres of traditional farmland on 12,000 Square feet every month," said O'Malley.
Each shipping container grows about 2 to 3 acres worth of produce. It's known as vertical farming. It takes advantage of the available space within each container.
Hurricane Ian was the first test of resiliency for Brick Street Farms CEO Shannon O'Malley.
"Using shipping containers, they're very robust, they're very strong. And because we've not only developed this property for an extraordinary amount of production, we've developed technology, such as an energy management system and water management system to allow us continuity of growing. So we basically didn't even have a blip," she said.
While vertical farming may not take over how we get our produce, it could lead to small changes on traditional farms.
"I think, as we gather more and more information and learn about some of those, you know, unique ways that they prepare or unique ways that they grow. That made a difference for how they fared during the disaster that'll be the type of thing that we learn and can use to educate growers in the future," said Court.
You can find UF/IFAS's full report here.
