Feb 23, 2021

Texas growers suffer heavy vegetable crop losses

‘Devastating’ to have crops destroyed

Meanwhile, Sara Srubar from Srubar Farms said that more than 80 percent of her winter crop froze, Alice Echo-News Journal reports.

“The crops did okay the first part of the intense freeze from Sunday through Tuesday but for some reason, the last two days which were not as cold did them in,” Srubar said.

Srubar Farms cultivates five to eight acres of land to grow produce and sells products throughout the Coastal Bend at the farmers’ markets in Alice, Corpus Christi and Rockport. They grow 25 different vegetable varieties though only five survived after the winter storm:  broccoli, brussels sprouts, red cabbage, carrots and beet crops.

“There is now a waiting period for the soil to warm up to start planting again in mid to late March,” Srubar added.  “There’s going to be a lull because the young winter crops would have been producing throughout the spring and early summer.”

“It’s devastating to put all this work into something and have it destroyed, but what can you do?”

At F Stop Farm in Manor, that was everything. “We won’t have harvestable produce for four weeks,” farmer Ryan Farnau told Austin 360 on Sunday. “It’s going to be tough. We’re going to have to reset.”

‘A new way’ needed of supporting local farmers

Erin Flynn, co-owner of Green Gate Farms, which has two properties  – one in Bastrop and one in East Austin – said in a blog post on Feb. 18: “We had done everything right.”

“We bought our supplies and seeds early as we anticipated COVID-induced scarcities, worked overtime prepping fields and planting, then spent countless hours preparing for the storm by covering, watering and mulching. We were as ready as you can be,” he said.

But without crop insurance, the farmers are the ones who take the hit. To add more layers of protection for farmers, Flynn wants to see food hubs, preservation laws that protect farmland, farmer education funding, loan forgiveness for students who choose to be farmers, and mentoring programs for new farmers.

Without much produce to sell at markets, many farmers won’t have income as they try to restart their crops. Some of them have community-supported agriculture programs, whose members paid for boxes that the farmers now won’t be able to fill.

Farmers are left asking customers again to support them by buying their crops in the future.

“What we really need is a whole new way of supporting local farmers,” Flynn said.

Photo: Green Gate Farms