Chilly week, but the simplest, oldest, wild variety survives

Thursday, the region got an actual rain, something desperately needed by all after a cold snap. How long has it been since we have seen “100%” on the weather app as the chance of rain? There is a promise of more chill this weekend, but then Florida will get back to its more seasonable weather prognosis. 

The back-and-forth of weather, especially Florida weather, is a given. Florida is well known for weather extremes, of course, and periods of drought are part of each winter. This year has been particularly dry. The Office of the State Climatologist has an online chart of the rain each year since 1895. The rain for 2025 across Florida was 44.33 inches, which was the 11th driest year on record. Last year was 9.32 inches below the long-term historical average of 53.65 inches, calculated from the last century.

Looking at statistics, then, is helpful. It feels very dry, almost dangerously so, but it is actually just plain old dry. Both Lee and Charlotte counties have burn bans because of the situation; we are below state averages as well locally. On top of the lack of rain, the cold will not be good for the plants, not only for truck and ornamental farmers, but in our yards. To quote a Central Florida strawberry farmer on Orlando television, “I see dead fruit. So that ain’t good.” 

That will mean higher prices for produce, and more pressure on a Florida agricultural community that is stressed. This year, there are two statehouse bills relating to Florida agriculture, HB 433 (House Companion) and SB 290. They were not put in to solve this year’s issues, but in general to “help” agriculture. There are some troubling aspects, the first of which is to try to lump multiple issues into a bill that purports to solve problems. (They did this last year in Tallahassee, as well.) The second is that it proposes a gag order.

Do look them up. They are omnibus bills, filled with all sorts of unrelated items, including a prohibition on signal-jamming devices, a prohibition on unauthorized assistance for commercial driver’s license exams, a repeal of Florida’s participation in the Southern States Energy Compact and the unlawful use of badges/indicia of authority. The merits of each section may be useful, but how can an elected official really keep track of all the pieces, and consider them properly, if the bill is a jumbled Tallahassee mess? 

The bill has a disparagement clause in it, which has been highly controversial across party lines. It applies to any “agricultural food product,” which is defined as any agricultural or aquacultural commodity or product that is produced in this state for human consumption, “including any agricultural practices used in the production of such products.” “Disparagement” means “willful or malicious dissemination to the public in any manner of any false information” that an agricultural food product is not safe for human consumption. False information is that which is “not based on reliable, scientific facts and reliable, scientific data which the disseminator knows or should have known to be false.”

There are plenty of torts for false information in a business setting already. Is it safe to use human excrement on agricultural land? Or only okay if we call it a bio-solid and pass it off on citrus groves? Is it okay to say that turf made using sewage waste is making me sick? How much Roundup before you get sick? Which scientist decides?

We can all feel a bit of despair at the quality of our food production and the challenges ahead. 

This week, however, came a bit of happiness and respite in the form of an empty field behind Coral Creek, where this editor walks his dogs. Somehow, a wild Everglades tomato plant showed up, fully grown. It had most probably escaped from a set of organic seeds purchased at ECHO Farms, a Fort Myers nonprofit working on worldwide issues of sustainable foods, and grown last summer.

The tomatoes, while tiny like currants, were plump and as tasty as any old varietal. The plant did not like the freeze, but had survived splendidly. Solanum pimpinellifolium is too delicate to ship or sell, but it works well in yards and outside, too, year round.

Thinking about this situation, and the issue of the silencing of thought, reminds one of George Orwell, from his book, “Coming Up For Air.” 

Orwell was a small farmer, and wrote:

“Why don’t people, instead of the idiocies they do spend their time on, just walk round looking at things?”

Garland Pollard is editor of the Boca Beacon. Email editor@bocabeacon.com