Wilton Simpson, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the state.
How did the Department of Agriculture fare with the legislative session this year?
Simpson said, “It was a very good year by the legislature. We’re very grateful to the legislature, we’re just now awaiting the governor’s signature. But we have $100 million of recurring revenue, specifically for our Rural and Family Lands. It’s where we buy the development rights from farmers so that property can never be developed, preserving our agricultural land in perpetuity. But there’s an additional $100 million in that budget that can also be used towards Rural and Family Lands, so we have potentially up to $200 million that we will be able to use for buying those development rights. That’s going to go a substantial way for preserving more and more of Florida’s agricultural land. Obviously, that’s going to be the key not only today, but 30, 40, 50, 100 years from now, the more effort we can put into this, not only does it save our farmlands, but it protects our wildlife corridor. Saving that wildlife corridor saves our aquifer recharge area where the animals are traverse, but it also saves our agriculture industry. So we’re very proud of the continued progress in the legislature.”
The wildlife corridor is where there are no lights on a nighttime map of Florida.
Simpson said, “The thing about it is it’s such an important area, when you think about the wildlife corridor, it does three things and we cannot do without any one of the three. Number one, it allows animals to traverse the state, our wildlife can do their natural habitat and traverse the state. That’s very important to our ecosystem here in Florida. Number two, is where aquifer substantially gets recharged in this entire state. We cannot live without water, none of our industries can live without water, obviously, we as people cannot live without water. Tourism cannot live without potable water and freshwater. So when you think about the importance of that, those two things are very large. But then number three, it’s where we grow our food. Remember that this time of year, we have a 70 to 80% of all the fresh vegetables on the eastern seaboard of the United States is grown in the state of Florida. So allowing that supply chain to be disrupted in any fashion can have a horrible effect on the entire country. When we think about inflation, and I know we’ve thought about that a lot the last couple of years, those pressures on our agriculture industry, the pressures on our economy, because in a lot of cases it’s just incompetence of the federal government, those pressures is what’s driving up our food costs. It’s really incompetence in a lot of levels at the federal level. We’re hoping to have a better result come November, because people cannot afford to spend more and more of their income on just food. The vast majority of that’s just been driven from federal regulatory structure.”
How does the health of the Everglades affect what’s happening in the Keys?
Simpson said, “Through my career in the legislature, we worked on every major piece of legislation that was going to protect our Everglades. I did the Everglades Restoration Act back in 2013, one of my first bills that I passed as a Senator. We’re very, very proud of those accomplishments, the C43 and the C44 reservoir, the southern reservoir, which sometimes referred to as the EAA reservoir, northern storage, all of the billions and billions of dollars that we’re funding these projects for. The governor has done a tremendous job of advocating for dollars, but these projects were started and devised long before Governor DeSantis even came into office. These are 10 to 15 year projects to get completed. I remember I think it was 2015 and we fully funded at that time, I think it was $48 million. We fully funded the subject of sewer systems for the Everglades to remove that nutrient load out of the system. You do still have some things that need to be addressed. The legislature has attempted to address these and so far, we’ve made progress but we’re not as successful. If you look at the outfalls coming out of South Florida, going right into the Atlantic there on that side of the state, those are things that have to continuously be cleaned up. In the meantime, agriculture gets blamed for a lot of the pollution into these systems. And it’s just wrong, that our society would be led to that conclusion.”
In the Everglades, 70% of the pollution load that comes into that system comes from the northern Everglades.
Simpson said, “That’s why as Senate president I put $350 million in the budget to ramp up our northern storage efforts. Until we can get that northern piece under control, you’re not going to be able to get the nutrient load, much lower in the southern side, because that’s where it comes from. We’re going to lose Lake Okeechobee and we’re losing it and I know we’re making some progress, but clearly, we have focused on these other issues rather than I believe the root causes of what’s ailing the Everglades, which is more of the northern piece at this point. The northern storage, we’re going to grab that water that’s coming into the lake from the north that has to be released through the Caloosahatchee and the St. Lucie, we’re going to grab it there, treat it to drinking water standards and put it down into our aquifer for storage. Then in drought times, you can reverse those pumps and bring it right back up and feed it into the system. But it will be clean water, it’ll be drinking water, standard water and it’ll be coming into the system, rather than the nutrient loads that are coming in there today. I think it’s very important for folks to understand that. When we can stop the releases substantially on the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie because we now have northern storage in place, it will stop those opportunities for the blue green algae and things of that nature. Once that components in place, and look, we’re talking about a decade from now, but then we can in earnest start cleaning up Lake Okeechobee, as we have done other spring sheds. If anyone wants to see what we’re capable of doing in the spring shed, google, our Kings Bay in Crystal River, Kings Bay and friends of Crystal River. That natural habitat is coming back, not only gorgeous, but in a much more pristine way. We’re very proud of the progress we’re making. I know these things can be very political or politicized. There’s nothing political about making sure that we have clean water and fresh water. As Senate President, we put tens of millions of dollars into the Keys and into the aquifer and the desalinization facilities to make sure that the Keys were taken care of and the maintenance that was needed on the aqueduct going down from South Florida to the Keys. We’re very proud of being what I felt like as part of the Keys. I did many pieces of legislation through my career working in the Keys. I was very proud of those things.”
Keeping toxins out of the water is critical.
Simpson said, “Since the early 90s, we’ve been using what are called BMPs, which are Best Management Practices, to manage water use, fertilizers, applications, things of that nature. When you look at it, if you go back to 1990, Florida’s number one water use was agriculture. Today, because of BMPs and better technology, Florida agriculture is a distant second, second to our population growth in humans. So we have reduced our water demand in agriculture from 40 to 80% in most crops that are grown in the state of Florida, so think about that much reduction. Number two, we’ve had advanced best management practices in and around the EAA , the agriculture area below Lake Okeechobee, and we’ve reduced the nutrient load from agricultural sources by up to 80% in those areas, much greater than we thought was obtainable if you go back to 1990. Here’s the very important point for everybody to hear is when you think about the fresh vegetables in the United States of America, in the wintertime, every winter, Florida is responsible for 70 to 80% of all the vegetables grown on the eastern seaboard of the United States. If we push those farmers out of business, where are we going to replace those vegetables? When we think about inflation, what is driving inflation is those horrible policies the federal government’s put in place to not only drive up our food costs by making it much more expensive to produce your food, but they’re continually putting these pressures on your farmers driving them out of business. Where do you replace that food? You could say, well, we’re going to have to have more foreign food come into this country. If the pandemic taught us anything, it taught us we do not want to rely on foreigners and especially our foreign enemies, to produce things that we cannot survive without. Food is a national security issue and food needs to be looked at through that lens. So the naysayers and folks that are fighting your farmers every day, remember, we are producing the food and fiber that we get by on every day in this country and it’s becoming more and more expensive as the enemies of farming are getting more and more entrenched, mostly in our federal government. The state does a tremendous job of fighting back here on state issues but the federal government is out of control.”
The Fresh from Florida program certainly highlights the food that’s grown in Florida.
Simpson said, “We’ve been so proud of that. So starting last year, I took office in January, we’ve really ramped up the Fresh from Florida, the advertising, the making sure that people as they go to the grocery stores and the stores they shop at know that there are produce and products in the stores that are grown here in Florida. The state of Florida has responded to these things. Our Florida farmers have benefited from Floridians going in and buying Fresh from Florida products, fruits, vegetables, meats, aquaculture, all of the things that our farmers are producing and that goes a long ways to protecting Florida agriculture. Our whole idea is there is to drive value for our Florida farmers so they can remain in business. We want to protect our supply chain. If you go on an app to buy your groceries, if you’re going out and buying them in any fashion, you should be encountering Fresh from Florida. We’ve got a super team in Tallahassee that is driving the advertising. Clearly we have gotten a lot of advertisement in all facets, including inside the stores, TV, radios, apps. We’re very proud of that program. The whole idea behind this program is first of all, educate our citizens that you can buy agricultural grown products from Florida, this Fresh from Florida, we have some in dairy now. We’re really expanding this program. We’re pushing it so that the Florida farmers can receive a fair value. So you go in and you see strawberries, blueberries, milk, anything and you got a Fresh from Florida product, or you got another product there, what we have seen is that people will go to pick up the Fresh from Florida, even if it’s, you know, 10 cents more, 15 cents more a pound or something. So we’re very proud of the value that we’re driving for our farmers and the healthy choices that we’re driving for our consumers.”
Fire safety awareness is also a big issue.
Simpson said, “We’re going to do many press conferences later today on that issue. Think about the importance of prescribed fire, we use a lot of prescribed fire here in the state of Florida. We do about 2 million acres a year. The purpose for that is not only to restore our forests and protect our wildlife, but as to get rid of all that fuel that’s there in our forests. With an untimely lightning strike, we’re the lightning capital of the world, could turn into a forest fire. We’ve seen many disasters. Texas just had a major disaster with fires. Obviously, California seems to have them all the time. We’ve had them all over the country. Even in Canada, you’ve seen all those big fires last year. The more we do a prescribed fire, the safer we can keep not only our population, but our animals and all of the things that go with that. We’ve had many smaller fires this year, that’s caused some property damage. Fortunately, so far we have not had loss of life in any of those things. But our foresters are really the best in the country. They do a tremendous job for us. We’re very proud of them. The training that we put into him, in the legislature have, I put $93 million in the budget a few years ago to ramp up our equipment. Most of the equipment in our department was an average age of 18 to 20 years old. With a lot of the equipment that we’ve bought here in the last year, we’ve been able to do a lot more fire line cuts, a lot more burning and things of that nature. So we’re trying to make sure that we’re protecting our forests and make sure we’re protecting our wildlife, but most importantly, to make sure we’re protecting our population here in the state of Florida.”