It's early, really early... got to get up and GO!
Every morning I jump out of bed with a laundry list of “to do’s”. I feed my cat, then myself, get dressed, make coffee, kiss my love and out the door I go. This is my routine every morning, to harvest fresh strawberries for people from all over the state of Florida and the Nation to enjoy.
My heart beats fast as I drink my coffee on my way to work and the smell rises to my nose sitting me up straight to focus on the road. Twisting and turning at every turn like a roller coaster, I catch a glimpse of nature’s way of thanking early risers: a beautiful sunrise stretching across flat, swampy, wild Florida. Traffic is bad if I leave past 7:00 AM because of all the school buses but today I left on time, so I am enjoying my commute from Southeast Tampa to the Southernmost part of Hillsborough County where we have our strawberry fields. when I get there I park my car and head straight to the office to change into my work boots then gather a scale and bins to help our harvest run smoothly this morning. I take the farm truck out to the fields and can already see other crews picking their plots, so I hurry to set up for our own.
The sun is starting to show all its might and Florida weather and its relentless humidity remind me to take my jacket off. It feels good to be outdoors and not have to be stuck to an office job but it is hard work honestly getting up early every morning and having to go through any type of unforeseen circumstance that could hold us back on our fieldwork schedule. In Florida, it is mostly the weather that will choose to suddenly change from fair conditions into hurricane-like storms in a very short amount of time. I really am not sure if people overall understand all the work that goes into feeding the world.
Like much of the produce people eat worldwide, strawberries are best when fresh, and to ensure the best quality most of the berries harvested today will immediately be packaged and sent to supermarkets. Picking crews harvest by hand over 8,000 acres of strawberries across the State of Florida and carefully package them in containers to be sold at local stores and markets. This is tedious work, yet despite the hardship that comes along with agriculture, all the individuals in commercial picking crews will work 10-hour long shifts, a relentless and difficult way to earn a living. You might be able to watch them while driving past strawberry fields running back and forth in the field rushing to harvest as many flats as they can because time is money, and they want to be able to provide as much as they can to their families.
The picking crew I help run is great and we tend to finish harvesting our field in less than two hours. But I don’t run a commercial crew of strawberry pickers but rather a very enthusiastic group of retired folks from Sun City Center and neighboring communities. Most of them will take the strawberries harvested each day and share with family and friends while others will try all kinds of recipes with strawberries in them.
Cecil and Tanya are our best strawberry pickers and take on three times the number of rows as the rest the volunteers. We are not even done setting things up for the day’s work when they are already there eager to start harvesting. They will also be among the first ones to meet their quota. They have told me that the worst thing about their job is the bending over but not the early hours or having to deal with the weather because they also find passion in agriculture. We could all use some of that energy!
Both Cecil and his wife love helping their friends. They enjoy bringing them to help with harvesting. This gives them something to do and they get to contribute and be an active part of the strawberry “stravaganzza”. California produces over 90% of the entire strawberry crop, while Florida leads the winter production. Plant City, Florida (in Hillsborough County) is recognized as the “Winter Strawberry Capital of the World” and is home to some of the sweetest, reddest, and juiciest strawberries around. Volunteers are great help and it motivates us to see people from all kinds of backgrounds recognize the beauty and importance in agriculture. Every day Americans like Cecil and Tanya or Cheryl and Donna remind us how important our work is and how thankful most people are towards our effort in helping feed the world.
A lot of work goes into growing the perfect berries or any other crop and it is no easy task for farmers around the world. A somber reality is that it soon won’t be a much easier task either when by the year 2050 world population growth is estimated to force us to figure out how to feed nearly 9 billion people with about the same amount of farmland and natural resources available in the present. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations the main challenges agriculture faces to be able to feed close to approximately 2 billion more mouths include facing the growing demand of food by increasing production, while making better use of natural resources.
Part of the effort humanity has set forth to help with this challenge includes the application of high-end science in agriculture. Scientist worldwide are hard at work tackling some of the greatest threats to agriculture and the United States is a forerunner in spearheading the effort. Across the nation, land-grant universities were funded after designated by the Morrill Acts of 1862 to receive benefits from federal land sold. These schools have had a significant scientific impact nation-wide and across the world in agriculture, medicine, and physics.
One of those schools is the University of Florida where I am currently working as a Research Assistant while I obtain my Ph.D. degree in Plant Nematology. My workplace is at the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (GCREC) in Balm and is very much one of the reasons why Florida farmers have a leading edge across the nation and in global exports. The GCREC is an agricultural research station with over 475-acres and 17 faculty members as well as over 130 employees including graduate students and interns. The research station is well equipped and staffed with great scientists that focus on a wide variety of topics like horticulture, weed management, plant, breeding, pest control, disease management and even agricultural economics.
I am part of the Vegetable and Fruit Nematology Laboratory at the GCREC and we are focused on finding alternatives to soil fumigants and restricted use of pesticides for the management of plant-parasitic nematodes on vegetable and fruit crops in Florida. Nematodes are the most abundant animals on Earth and they inhabit nearly every environment on earth, separated widely into groups according to their main food source. A large group of these microscopic “roundworms” feed on plants and are thought to be responsible for over 10% of global crop damage and yield loss.
Plant-parasitic nematodes will rob water and nutrients from plant roots besides facilitating the entrance of other noxious soil-borne diseases. Strawberries in Florida are particularly affected by Sting nematodes (Belonolaimus longicaudatus) which cause severe plant stunting and reduced yield. Florida and its sandy soils are perfect for nematodes to thrive, and they can be found on probably every crop grown in the state; if left unaddressed nematode populations can get to detrimental levels before growers have time to save their crop. Farmers worldwide lose over 100 billion dollars altogether each year to plant-parasitic nematodes and part of our job is to find ways to reduce that negative impact in more sustainable and profitable ways.
There are plenty of challenges farmers must face and I do get a sense that through our effort we are making a dent in the overarching challenges agriculture faces today and will have to encounter in the future. All that success is thanks to the faculty, students, interns, staff, and volunteers that flock to the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center with the purpose of in one way or another helping feed the world! Choosing to feed the world is choosing a tough trade for life but the reward in return will be the greatest sense of fulfillment anyone could expect!
Working in agriculture is tough no doubt, but it is rewarding in so many ways. I love what I do for a living and I am reminded of that every morning as I go to work. Being in the Florida outdoors early in the morning is magical regardless of what place you find yourself in – maybe even the city. But for me, right there embracing in the noble act of doing my part to feed the world, where food is grown, and science is applied is where it feels the most magical.
Will you do your part?
About the author:
My name is David Moreira, a Ph.D. Student in Plant Nematology and Graduate Assistant at the University of Florida's Vegetable and Fruit Nematology Laboratory.
Current research focuses on the use of Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation for the Management of Plant-Parasitic Nematodes in High and Low Input Cropping Systems." We will be implementing this methodology along with the USDA's U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory in Florida on strawberries, as well as in Honduras (Central America) on vegetables with the help of Zamorano University.
Originally from Honduras where I obtained my Bsc. in Agriculture from Zamorano University with a focus in plant breeding. Later I moved on to an internship with the University of Florida working with feral Africanized honey bees in the Everglades Agricultural Area in South Florida. Following that, I shifted toward plant nematology and did an internship at the University of Florida's Vegetable and Fruit Nematology Laboratory, where I later obtained my Master's in Plant Nematology with a focus on the "Effect of Non-Fumigant Nematicides on Different Trophic Groups of Nematodes.
Credits:
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