Hurricane to Boost S.D. County Avocado Profits
Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed 50,000 homes in Florida, also wiped out that state’s avocado business, meaning higher prices for consumers but bigger profits for California growers, who last year produced 87% of the nation’s avocado crop.
The storm should boost prices paid to San Diego County farmers, whose ranches produce 45% of the state’s annual avocado harvest, said Howard Seelye, spokesman for the California Avocado Commission, a Santa Ana-based trade association.
Until the tropical storm ripped through South Florida, farmers in San Diego County and statewide feared that an upcoming bumper avocado crop would cause a glut and, as a result, lower prices. The state’s 1993 crop, which will be harvested starting in November, is expected to yield 400 million pounds, up from 300 million pounds in 1992, Seelye said.
“Nobody takes any pleasure from another state losing a good deal of its crop. However, it will have an impact,” Seelye said. “This should help stabilize the price for the California crop.”
In Florida Monday, the hurricane tore fruit and leaves from avocado trees, which are concentrated in a 10-square-mile area near Homestead, south of Miami. The trees, Wedin said Wednesday, will need two years to recover fully, although there may be a small harvest in 1993.
Florida grew about 12.5% of the nation’s avocados in 1991. That harvest was valued at $27.8 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Florida avocados are sweeter and more watery than those grown in California, leading to speculation about whether consumers will substitute one for the other, said Avi Crane, a vice president of Calavo, a growers’ cooperative based in Tustin. If they do, they will almost certainly pay more than the $1.29 apiece that avocados now bring.
“This will clearly have a positive influence on us,” said Rob Wedin, director of operations for Calavo. “In circumstances like this, growers and shippers charge more, then the stores raise their prices.”
California’s avocado crop last year was worth about $193 million to farmers last year, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture. The largest avocado producing counties in the state after San Diego are Ventura, Santa Barbara, Orange and Riverside.
San Diego County avocado farmers have been dealing with natural calamities of a lesser magnitude over the past four years, Seelye said. The local industry has been hit with heat waves, freezes and steep hikes in water prices. “Everything has seemed to go against avocado growers,” Seelye said.
Florida agriculture officials began surveying the damage Wednesday. That state’s avocado crop was producing about 1 million pounds a day when the storm hit, officials said, compared with about 5 million pounds a day coming out of California.
Grapefruit and oranges, which are grown north of the area devastated by Andrew, were apparently spared, said Ivy Leventhal of the Florida Department of Citrus. “The hurricane passed south of us,” she said.
Tomatoes and limes, which are also grown in the Homestead area, were reportedly damaged as well. That affects California agriculture only minimally, however, said Lute Miyazaki, president of L.J. Distributors in Santa Fe Springs. That’s because California has only a small lime crop and because California’s and Florida’s tomatoes are harvested at different times of the year.
