More fruit, less loot: trade wars present issues for Florida growers

While political pontificators pick apart whether a revised North American free trade agreement will be good or bad for general business interests, some Florida growers could die on the vine. Or in the strawberry patch.

That’s the view of a new University Florida study, which projects tomato, strawberry and bell pepper growers statewide could lose up to $400 million a year if Congress ratifies the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement — the new NAFTA —without preventing Mexico from pushing subsidized produce into American markets. In one sense, the study, from UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, prolongs a deep-rooted problem: Agriculture products imported from Mexico, the study shows, have cost Florida farmers up to $3 billion since 2000.