Thursday, December 27, 2007

The Plant City Strawberry

Florida strawberry growers, almost all within 30 miles of Plant City, planted a record 8,320 acres this year after a sixth consecutive record sales year of $273 million. Those figures represent a 14 percent increase from $239 million in sales in the 2005-06 season and an 11 percent increase in the 7,500 acres planted last season, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture......here

1 comment:

Mariella said...

Record sales and record success, yet they claim they can't survive economically in this county unless we give them new exemptions from our wetland protection rules, and let them damage and destroy wetlands — without mitigation — in ways no other industry is allowed to do.

The new wetland exemptions will apply to all “agriculture,” which includes logging & livestock operations, beekeeping, fish farms, and ornamental plant nurseries; but it is the strawberry farmers and the ornamental growers who are pushing the hardest for the exemptions, with county commissioner Al Higginbotham as their champion.

The more wetlands they are allowed to fill, the more attractive their land will be to developers. It won’t be strawberry fields forever.