When the counting is done, the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season will likely add up to at least a $1.2 billion loss for Florida farms.
That was the news delivered to the Florida Senate’s Agriculture Committee on Tuesday. Lawmakers are meeting in committees this week in the Capitol, part of the run-up to the 2025 regular session that kicks off March 4.
Damages are pegged at $975 million in an initial estimate by researchers at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences (IFAS).
Debby, Helene, and Milton made landfall between Aug. 3 and Oct. 9 and swept over 12 million acres that annually produce more than $17 billion in agricultural products.
Members of the community work on a damaged roof while recovery efforts are underway after Hurricane Helene passed through the Florida panhandle, in Perry, Florida, U.S., September 28, 2024.
There were 41 counties that experienced tropical storm wind from all three storms, but the Big Bend farm belt bore the brunt of the damage.
The eyes of two of the storms, focused on Taylor, Lafayette, Dixie and Suwanee counties, resulted in at least $332 million in agriculture losses.
In a span of seven weeks, both Debby and Helene lashed the same 71,000 acres with wind up to 140 mph. Then the Big Bend counties and a dozen others were inundated with flooding rain from Milton.
Destroyed were timber, corn, melons, tomatoes, citrus, nuts, flocks of turkeys and dairy cows – and the infrastructure needed for them to grow.
Lawmaker: Report could underestimate Florida losses from last year’s storms
The committee’s chair – Sen. Keith Truenow, R-Tavares – suspects the report underestimates losses.
Truenow
Truenow is a central Florida sod producer whose farm endured significant losses during Hurricane Idalia in 2023. He told the IFAS report’s author, Dr. Christa D. Court, that he suspects losses will total at least $1.2 billion by the time she concludes her report later this year.
“In the end, there are a lot of things that you’re not capturing yet,” Truenow said. “You’re probably missing a third of what the real, true costs are….”
Court explained losses that bleed into calendar year 2025 and marketing year 2025–26 have not yet been calculated.
“There are acute impacts on the farm you can see – like the fruit has fallen off of the citrus tree, but you don’t see the branch damage that might lead to fruit loss later in the season,” Court said.
Also not included in the preliminary estimate are the costs of materials and labor to repair and replace roads, buildings, and irrigation systems.
Moreover, IFAS does not calculate the timber industry’s financial losses, which is done by the Florida Forest Service, nor does it factor in changes in purchasing behavior up and down the agriculture supply chain because of the storms that affected Florida producers.
The IFAS survey of damages from the 2024 hurricane season will continue through the end of this year.
James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com and is on X as @CallTallahassee.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida farms’ $1 billion bill from hurricanes Debby, Helene, Milton
