Florida tomato growers falling deeply in the red

Freezing weather has taken a heavy toll on Florida growers' tomato plants.

Even before the freezes Wednesday night, some growers had lost 70 percent of their plants.

The upshot is not just that tomatoes are more expensive - in some restaurants and markets, they aren't available.

Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange in Maitland, said Florida normally provides enough tomatoes at this time of year to feed North America.

"Crippling" is the word Brown uses to describe the losses from January through February. He calls it the biggest supply disruption of the Florida tomato crop in 20 years.

"We've got growers who could have had as much as $10,000 an acre in a crop that was destroyed by the freeze," Brown said. "Those kinds of losses are hard to recover from."

The tomato plants planted after January's freezes are growing slowly because of cool weather. Farmers hope that by April, normal production will be back, but for the next month or so, the demand for tomatoes likely will exceed the supply.

"When supplies are limited in a supply-demand marketplace, prices go up," Brown said. Some markets turned to tomatoes from Mexico, which also are limited because of weather issues, Brown said.

Growers hope the short supply doesn't sour customers.

"We're always concerned that customers will go to another source," Brown said. "And we're concerned that consumers will cease consumption and walk away."

TOMATO FACTS

•Florida ranks first in the nation in value of production of fresh tomatoes.

•Florida ships more than 1.1 billion pounds of fresh tomatoes nationwide, to Canada and abroad.

•Total tomato crop value at the farm level exceeds $619 million.

•The cost of producing and harvesting tomatoes averages nearly $12,000 an acre.

•Tomatoes account for nearly one-third the total value of fresh vegetables produced in Florida each year.

Source: the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange