The state farmers' market in Wauchula matches the fruitful fields it serves: Both are hurricane-ravaged.
By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published October 5, 2004
[Times photo: Lara Cerri
A lone watermelon plant planted after Hurricane Charley lies dying near Bowling Green last week.
[Times photo: Lara Cerri
Stacey Daughtry and her dog, Tractor, collect ice, water and bug spray at the state farmers' market buildings in Wauchula last week..
WAUCHULA - The state farmers' market here used to be one more cog in the wheel of Hardee County's multimillion-dollar agricultural business, helping to move crops from field to wholesaler.
But after being pummeled by recent hurricanes, the market is as dysfunctional as the surrounding landscape.
One of its packinghouses is a wreckage of twisted metal. A second has an entire wall missing. The only warehouse left untouched has been commandeered by disaster relief groups. Instead of trucks rolling out of the market filled with fresh produce, cars file through for water, ice and insect repellent.
If Diana Durrance, market manager for the past 18 years, is dazed by the blows her operation has taken recently, her tenants and other farmers in this rural county southeast of Tampa seem defeated.
The market's biggest tenant, Severt & Sons, has $100,000 worth of yellow squash rotting in its fields, scarred, bruised and beaten by the storms.
Florida Beef, which was planning to open a processing plant at the market in January, figures it won't be up and running until June. A feed store that has been a tenant for 13 years had its worst August ever, with receivables at an all-time high.
Hardee County grower Jimmy Parker, who finished replanting 200 acres decimated by Hurricane Charley only to have them washed out by Jeanne, summed up the desperation many in this agricultural community are feeling.
"I'm going to end up without a crop for the first time in 44 years," said Parker, 64, one of the county's biggest growers. "I'm out of time."
If agriculture is Hardee County's lifeblood, bringing in $166-million in 2002, the storms have caused major hemorrhaging.
Durrance's market, on 8 acres along both sides of U.S. 17, should be gearing up for the fall harvest, running round the clock till spring. Instead, there's not a single piece of fresh produce on the property. The 14 markets in the state system are intended to give growers an affordable place to process, pack and store their crops for wholesale distribution. The most lucrative locations, like Florida City, subsidize those that have a harder time covering costs.
Wauchula ranks in the lower third of the state's produce markets in terms of profit and toward the bottom in value of commodities sold. Durrance, 57, doesn't pretend it has been easy, as farmers have been driven out of business by rising costs and unpredictable returns.
"Agriculture was already hurting before this," she said. "I've had big turnover in tenants in the last few years."
Still, the woman who held the title of Miss Agriculture at Kansas State University in the late 1960s has kept the property consistently leased using a little ingenuity. One long-time tenant makes and repairs packing equipment. A plumbing contractor occupies one office, while an irrigation company rents some land. Severt & Sons, which usually farms 160 acres, joined the market two years ago because it offered reasonable rent on loading docks, coolers and storage space close to the fields.
Durrance was pleased to sign a lease in August with Florida Beef, which operates a slaughterhouse in nearby Zolfo Springs. The company will spend about a half-million dollars converting a packinghouse into a processing and storage plant that will employ up to 30.
"I've had to hustle to fill vacancies," said Durrance, who is praised by tenants for her ability to cut through red tape. "I work for the bureaucrats, but my heart is in it for the farmers."
Last year tenants at the Wauchula market packed 440,000 units of produce - everything from squash to strawberries - with a value of $4.8-million. At the peak of the season, there were about 100 people employed on the property and hundreds more in the fields and distribution.
Now Durrance is looking at $2.5-million worth of damage to the market, with Severt's space completely unusable. Her bosses at the state Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, are juggling Wauchula's needs with damage at four other state markets.
Though Durrance knows she has to push forward, the area's agricultural cycle has been so disrupted by storms it almost doesn't seem to matter.
Parker, whom Durrance considers the most successful farmer in Hardee County, should have had tomatoes in the field by mid September to avoid risk of frost. But Charley took his tomato seedlings when it blew through Aug. 13. By the time the fields dried out enough to plant, Parker's only option was faster-growing watermelon and cucumbers. Those were demolished by Jeanne.
Parker figures he has spent close to $800,000 planting and replanting in the past two months. Last week, black plastic, which is supposed to cover the crop beds, was strewn across Parker's fields, buried in mud and flapping from fences like witches' capes.
"It looks worse when you've got money in it," he said.
Parker should have options, but none of them looks good. He has his own packinghouse, but with no crop this fall, there will be no work this winter. He owns a produce brokerage business to trim the expense of getting his product to market. Now he'll have to buy vegetables elsewhere, most likely in Mexico, so his margin will be slim.
Parker might make a little money from his 2,000 head of cattle, but since the fields are flooded, it has been tough to get the calves to market. Even if he did, he'd run into another problem: The nearest auction is at the state market in Arcadia, which Durrance also manages. Storm damage there has meant only one auction in the past month.
The final card up Parker's sleeve has also turned out to be a joker. He has 800 acres of citrus, but the oranges are all on the ground.
In good times, Parker's agricultural endeavors employed up to 70 people in the packinghouse and 120 in the fields, with total payroll of about $2-million. He's down to a half-dozen tractor drivers, who may be laid off soon.
Parker has no idea what to tell the contractor who handles his pickers, now working vegetable fields in Georgia. "If there's nowhere to work down here and no place to live, I think a lot of the migrants will go straight from Georgia back to Mexico," he said.
As the shock of the storms wears off a bit, there are some signs of revival. Severt & Sons started planting strawberries on 82 acres last week, two weeks later than usual. The delay means the berries harvested late in the season will be competing with California's crop, resulting in a lower price. Ron Young, Severt's partner, said there is little choice.
"We just have to plant them as fast as we can," he said.
With luck, Young said, workers will be able to begin picking strawberries by the beginning of December. That means he needs to have his packing and cooling equipment moved into another space at the market in Wauchula by mid November.
Durrance also is being pressed by Clay Lee, owner of Florida Beef, who wants to get into the warehouse now housing disaster relief. "Our drop-dead date on needing that was yesterday," Lee said last week.
Durrance, meanwhile, is trying to snap back to her old take-charge persona. The only woman manager in the state market system, she said salesmen once called her "the Wicked Witch of Wauchula." She took it as a compliment. "We can probably get those tenants where they need to be," she said. "Yes, ma'am. Where there's a will, there's a way."
