Florida winter vegetable belt
Off-season production for the eastern US
Florida produces the largest share of US winter vegetables east of the Mississippi, supplying November through April when most of the country is dormant.
About florida
Florida produces the largest share of US winter vegetables east of the Mississippi, supplying November through April when most of the country is dormant. Production concentrates in south Florida (Homestead area for cool-season crops) and central Florida (Plant City, Immokalee, and the muck soils around Lake Okeechobee). Key crops include winter tomatoes (Florida competes with Mexican imports for the US winter tomato market — and largely loses, due to cost structure), bell peppers, sweet corn, snap beans, leafy greens, and cucumbers. The Florida tomato industry has been particularly important to US food history; it was the site of major farmworker organizing efforts (the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' Fair Food Program) and the source of the cultivar shift in commercial tomato production that produced the shipping-durable, flavor-light winter supermarket tomato. The crops are grown on sandy or muck soils, irrigated, and harvested into industrial supply chains. The labor force is largely Mexican and Central American migrant. Hurricane season — peaking exactly when winter crops are being planted — is a chronic risk that periodically disrupts the supply chain.
Origin profile
Varieties from Florida winter vegetable belt
10 varieties associated with this origin. Tap any variety for its full editorial profile.
Editorial notes
Florida winter tomatoes are the canonical example of the cultivar-shift-vs-flavor problem in modern produce. The Florida tomato industry built its supply chain on varieties bred for green-pick, gas-ripening, and long-shipping shelf life — which produces the pale pink, mealy, mostly flavorless supermarket tomato of January and February. Mexican greenhouse tomatoes have outcompeted Florida in recent years partly on flavor as much as cost. The Florida growers know this and are slowly shifting cultivars, but the industry economics are unforgiving.