{"id":25665,"date":"2017-09-14T19:05:22","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T00:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25665"},"modified":"2017-09-14T19:05:22","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T00:05:22","slug":"florida-farmers-say-irmas-damage-is-the-worst-theyve-ever-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25665","title":{"rendered":"Florida Farmers Say Irma\u2019s Damage Is The Worst They\u2019ve Ever Seen"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shtfplan.com\/emergency-preparedness\/florida-farmers-say-irmas-damage-is-the-worst-theyve-ever-seen_09132017\">Florida Farmers Say Irma\u2019s Damage Is The Worst They\u2019ve Ever Seen<\/a><\/h3>\n<div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-48261\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/shtfplan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/citruscrops-e1505315629751.jpg?resize=560%2C302\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/shtfplan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/citruscrops-e1505315629751.jpg?w=560 560w, http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/shtfplan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/citruscrops-e1505315629751.jpg?resize=300%2C162 300w\" alt=\"citruscrops\" width=\"560\" height=\"302\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Almost half of Florida\u2019s citrus crops were destroyed during the hurricane and when Florida farmers survey the damage caused by Hurricane Irma, and most are saying it\u2019s the worst destruction to their farms that they\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n<p>When the worst of Irma\u2019s fury had passed,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.growingproduce.com\/author\/gmcavoy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gene McAvoy<\/a>\u00a0hit the road to inspect the citrus groves and vegetable fields in Florida. McAvoy is a specialist on vegetable farming at the University of Florida\u2019s extension office in the town of LaBelle. LaBelle is located in the middle of one of the country\u2019s biggest concentrations of vegetable and citrus farms.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thesalt\/2017\/09\/12\/550404709\/floridas-veggie-farmers-look-at-irmas-damage-probably-the-worst-weve-seen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>NPR<\/em><\/a>, the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thesalt\/2017\/09\/12\/550404709\/floridas-veggie-farmers-look-at-irmas-damage-probably-the-worst-weve-seen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">storm made a direct hit to those fields.<\/a> \u201cThe eyewall came right over our main production area,\u201d McAvoy says. Irma had destroyed almost half of the citrus crops in the central Florida area, meaning prices are likely going to go up sharply.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the destroyed groves of oranges and grapefruit were actually approaching harvest too. \u00a0But after Irma blew through, it left \u201c50 or 60 percent of the fruit lying in water [or]<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>on the ground,\u201d says McAvoy. Many trees were standing in water, a mortal danger if their roots stay submerged for longer than three or four days. About a quarter of the country\u2019s sugar production comes from fields of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thesalt\/2016\/05\/05\/476600965\/the-environmental-cost-of-growing-food\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sugar cane<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thesalt\/2016\/05\/05\/476600965\/the-environmental-cost-of-growing-food\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0near Lake Okeechobee, just east of LaBelle.<\/a> Harvest season for the sugar cane crop is only a few weeks away, but Irma knocked much of the cane down, making it more difficult to harvest. \u201c<strong>We won\u2019t know the exact extent of the loss until it\u2019s harvested<\/strong>,\u201d McAvoy says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florida Farmers Say Irma\u2019s Damage Is The Worst They\u2019ve Ever Seen Almost half of Florida\u2019s citrus crops were destroyed during the hurricane and when Florida farmers survey the damage caused by Hurricane Irma, and most are saying it\u2019s the worst destruction to their farms that they\u2019ve ever seen. When the worst of Irma\u2019s fury had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15997,940,15807,6489,6490],"class_list":["post-25665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-citrus-crops","tag-florida","tag-hurricane-irma","tag-mac-slavo","tag-shtfplan-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25666,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25665\/revisions\/25666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}