Fresh Plaza, a global trade publication on the fresh produce industry, published an article claiming climate change is harming Florida’s strawberry production. This is wrong. The data show that amid moderate warming, Florida’s strawberry production has increased significantly over the past 30 years. The United States Department of Agriculture reports that shipments of Florida strawberries have more than doubled since 2000.
Fresh Plaza article, “’Climate change will affect strawberry production in Florida,’” citing a report by the environmental lobbying group, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which claims, based on computer model simulations of future weather under pseudo-climate conditions determined that strawberry production could drop by as much as 17% in some developing counties, resulting in income loss of more than 10%.
Known shortcomings with computer model predictions and real-world strawberry production data cast doubt on the EDF’s claims.
Based on computer model projections, the EDF cites two main climate changes that it says are threatening Florida’s strawberry crops: higher temperatures and increasingly severe storms. Regarding the temperature, Climate realism has repeatedly discussed the fact that climate models do not accurately reflect temperatures. They run too hot. If the model simulations don’t accurately reflect past and present temperatures, and since the start, they have consistently predicted more warming than what Earth has experienced, then no. There is no reason to rely on their future temperature projections.
Just as the EDF implies, hurricanes become a bigger problem for Florida. The data proves that Atlantic storm no increase in terms of quantity and severity during the recent period of modest warming.
What about strawberries? Florida is the second largest strawberry-producing state, behind only California, although it is in second place. In 2021, Florida’s strawberry crop generated $399 million in value, 12% of the total value of the U.S. strawberry crop, according to the report. Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Strawberries are Florida’s top berry.
Historically, Florida’s strawberry crop was produced from December to March, but new varieties and better growing conditions led Florida to begin strawberry production in November. United States Department of Agriculture reported that since 2000, Florida’s strawberry shipments have more than doubled. Indeed, strawberry production is growing so well that the area devoted to growing strawberries has increased by 5% in 2021 alone.
Although, like other crops, strawberry production increases and decreases every year, in 2020 strawberries in Florida set a new record for production and production in 2021, albeit below the level of the previous year. 2020, but still higher than all previous production years since 2013.
For the United States as a whole, data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization also shows that strawberry production has increased during recent moderate warming. From 1990 to 2021, US strawberry production increased by more than 99%, setting a new record of 15 times production, most recently in 2020. Also from 1990 to 2021, US strawberry production Ky increased by about 113%, setting a new record for output 16 times. Florida is a big part of that. (see chart, below)
The lesson of this story is that Fresh Plaza should check the data before going public with any “research” that a climate alarm group puts out, claiming that any particular crop, or agricultural production generally, are or will be harmed by climate change. Its readers will be happy to know that strawberry production in Florida is doing well and there is no reason to think that it will not continue to grow in the future, unless fossil fuel use is discontinued. ban. Available data disprove claims that climate change is harming strawberry production in Florida or the nation as a whole, and when data and forecasting models conflict, science says trust the data.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy and managing editor of Climate & Environment News. In addition to directing the Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy, Burett is associated with Environment & Climate News as editor of Heartland’s Climate Change Weekly Email and host of the Environment & Climate News Podcast.
Related
