MANATEE — For Manatee County tomato grower Tony DiMare, the spring tomato season is just underway and his outlook for a profitable season is dismal.
“We’re coming off one of the worst winters as far as market prices on a long time,” said DiMare, vice president of the DiMare Co., “and the situation currently is not any better.”
Prices are down from around $12 for a 25-pound box of premium tomatoes two weeks ago to $8 on Tuesday. Although this is expected in a volatile market, prices tend to drop easier than they rise, according to Reggie Brown of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange.
Growers such as DiMare may have problems generating enough revenue just to cover the cost of their operations.
DiMare points to an oversupply of tomatoes as the main problem. Revenue in the tomato business is a function of supply and demand, and DiMare said there simply is too much supply for a demand hampered by a number of factors, including a weakened economy.
Now there are perfect growing conditions that include little rain, and thus a low disease pressure. DiMare said that’s led to an increased acreage and a glut in the numbers of tomatoes as growers take advantage of the weather and possibly are overcompensating for a poor winter season.
“Farmers can be their own worst enemy sometimes,” DiMare said.
Brown said that normally freezes bring the price of tomatoes up because they create a scarcity of product. “But in this particular situation, even with the freeze, the price did not rebound,” Brown said.
This is due to a number of possible reasons: The economy has led to picky consumers and a lowered demand; a large supply of tomatoes has been available from international competition in Mexico; last year’s salmonella outbreak that turned out to be unrelated to tomatoes; as well as freezes that hit just when crops were being planted on this state’s west coast; and finally, overproduction.
That said, not all statewide companies are complaining. Bob Spencer, vice president of West Coast Tomato in Palmetto, said he is happy with the health of his company.
“Sure, we’d like to have higher prices,” Spencer said, “but I’d also like to have Fort Knox in my basement and I don’t.”
Spencer agrees that increased acreage has dropped tomato prices. But he’s not worried that the economy is the factor that will squash the tomato business.
“People eat,” he said. “When times are bad, people eat. It’s not a luxury item as much as it’s a necessity.”
According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report, the number of tomato truck shipments statewide from last July to this April is a half-percent below the shipment level from the previous season.
While cherry tomatoes made the largest gain at 5.1 percent, grape tomato shipments were down 11.9 percent.
The combined numbers from round, cherry, grape and plum tomatoes is at 99.6 percent of the previous season’s shipment level, a figure not indicative of widespread damage from freezes.
Liz Compton, the spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Agriculture, said that the degree of each company’s success is varied.
“If a hurricane kills or takes out one house and the rest of the street is fine,” she said, “if you’re that one home, it was a very bad year. If you’re the other folks, it was not a bad year.”
Nick Walter, Herald staff writer, can be reached at 745-7013.
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