The Fate Of Farming In Florida

In southern Miami-Dade County, home to a $1 billion agricultural industry, the row crop industry is dying, and the chances for large-scale farms' survival have never been as slim, reports the Miami Herald. ''The economic returns to operators and landlords are currently insufficient to keep large acreages of row crop and grove land in agriculture,'' the paper quotes the Miami-Dade County Agricultural Land Retention Study. ''The long-term prognosis is increasingly grim.'' The fate of row crops, which include tomatoes, potatoes, corn, and beans, make up more than half of the region's 85,000 acres of agricultural land. According to the Herald: "On one side of the conflict are larger growers ... who farm on 50-plus acres of land and want the option of selling their fields to the highest bidder. ... On the other side are smaller-scale cultivators, the horticulturists, orchid and ornamental plant growers who are determined to maintain Miami-Dade County's last vestige of lush, privately owned, undeveloped land, the lone shield between encroaching urban sprawl and the Everglades."