Florida farmers competing for drivers, trucks to get food to consumers

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – While planetary proviso concatenation issues are reportedly easing, Florida farmers told lawmakers this week that perishable items with abbreviated support lives proceed to conflict successful being moved from fields to markets.

During a gathering of the Senate Agriculture Committee, growers said the manufacture faces proscription and labour shortages successful getting products retired of the crushed and to market. They besides look accrued prices and delays for materials -- specified arsenic seeds, fertilizers and chemicals -- needed to turn crops.

“There’s got to beryllium immoderate benignant of prioritization that tin hap successful the proviso chain,” said Tori Rumenik, commodity services and proviso concatenation manager for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association. “I’m conscionable going to laic it bare. I deliberation that getting ag inputs to producers and nutrient to consumers is much important than moving televisions and Christmas gifts. That’s conscionable my opinion. But we’re each successful contention for the aforesaid drivers and trucks.”

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Rumenik said what utilized to instrumentality 2 days to determination products is present taking weeks and, for some, months. As an example, Rumenik said a grower had to scramble to find home markets for his grapefruit aft being incapable successful astir 40 telephone calls to shippers to unafraid needed containers to conscionable overseas sales, thing she said typically requires a azygous call.

Suggestions for easing conditions included lowering the property and hours of operations for commercialized motortruck drivers connected interstates arsenic a mode to entice much workers into that portion of the industry, limiting the quality of shippers to depart Florida ports with bare containers, encouraging consumers to bargain home products and expanding proscription value limits for cultivation products.

“If we could adjacent conscionable successful the authorities of Florida summation the value bounds by 10,000 pounds that would assistance due to the fact that past 1 operator could instrumentality a afloat truck, not a afloat value limit,” said Brittany Lee, enforcement manager of the Florida Blueberry Growers Association and vice president of Florida Blue Farms extracurricular Gainesville. “And adjacent if it was lone connected authorities roads, that’s thing that your (Senate) committee could assistance do. That would alleviate immoderate of the issues due to the fact that past that operator is much effective. He’s going astatine 100%, not astatine 80% oregon 75% of his idiosyncratic capacities.”

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Sen. Keith Perry, R-Gainesville, said lawmakers request to look astatine the value and property limits, and perchance pesticide and fertilizer costs, arsenic they attack the 2022 legislative session, which begins Jan. 11.

“We’ve got to bash everything we tin to enactment this industry,” Perry said.

The challenges adhd to expanding costs for farmers, who for years person struggled to find workers and faced contention from cheaper imports from Mexico and different countries.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki connected Wednesday said the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach -- which person been seen arsenic the epicenter of the proviso concatenation bottleneck -- person delayed implementation of a $100-per-day interest for containers near lingering connected docks arsenic the magnitude of unmoved cargo had decreased 37% since Oct. 25.

“The mean clip a instrumentality sits connected the dock ... is connected way to beryllium backmost down to wherever it was erstwhile the president took bureau successful January and little than it was successful November of past year,” Psaki told reporters. “This means we’re getting goods faster to transportation trucks faster, to shelves faster, (and) of people to people’s homes.”

News Service of Florida