Florida Blueberry industry springs to record heights

Bill Braswell could not have picked a better time to turn his attention from the blue skies to blueberries. "It's become a real difficult thing juggling the two," said Braswell, a pilot for Delta Air Lines who began growing blueberries near his Auburndale home four years ago. "I thought this would be just a second income. It turned out to be more than that."

Braswell became a blueberry grower just as the Florida industry took off to record heights. Braswell and Jerry Mixon Jr., a veteran grower based in Haines City, estimated blueberry acreage in Florida reached nearly 3,000 acres in 2005, about double the 1,500 acres reported in 2001 by the Florida Agricultural Statistics Service in Orlando.

The rapid growth in blueberry acreage in that brief period has Braswell and Mixon concerned the industry may be in the midst of the same kind of economic bubble that claimed technology stocks in the 1990s and, many think, the real estate market today.

"You can make real good money right now," Braswell said. "I wish I knew where the future was. There are so many people coming into the business." Mixon said he thought the bubble would burst a couple of years ago, but as the industry continues to grow, he's no longer making predictions. He is a partner in the family company, Sunnyridge Farm, which has 130 acres of blueberries in Polk County and operates a packinghouse in Winter Haven.

"I had thought supply would run ahead of demand, but it hasn't happened yet," Mixon said. "It's a good crop to be in." The bubble may last another two to three years, said Braswell, who owns the 44-acre Juliana Plantation with partner Howard Ekblad, a library furniture retailer. The partners are already planning for it to burst.

"Our survival tactic is to get big quickly," he said. "Flat prices have gone into the upper $30s in recent years. The future is $16 to $18 a flat. We can make money on that." A flat of blueberries weighs 3.6 pounds. Juliana Plantation is working on a deal to purchase another 40 acres in Polk soon and hopes to add another 20 acres in the near future, Braswell said. Florida 's blueberry industry profitability stems from capturing a niche in the market.

Growers in Georgia and North Carolina don't begin harvesting until late May. But blueberry bushes bred for Florida's semitropical climate usually begin commercial production by April, sometimes late March. That puts Florida as the only domestic producer of fresh blueberries for about six weeks. As Braswell noted, prices early in the season typically approach $40 a flat, which includes packaging, shipping and other charges that don't get back to growers. By the end of May, flat prices prices usually fall below the $10 break-even point.

Blueberry prices have been particularly strong in recent years because of consistently positive media reports about the importance of antioxidants in the diet. Among fruits and vegetables, blueberries have the highest levels of antioxidants, which scientific studies have shown can prevent cancer and other age-related diseases.

"That's probably one of the leading factors increasing demand," Mixon said. "Everybody is thinking about healthy eating." When he lets friends and neighbors pick their own blueberries, they inevitably mention health benefits, Braswell said. "They always say how good they are for you," he said. Prices for Florida blueberries have responded to the rising demand.

In the late 1990s, growers averaged $2 to $3 a pound ($7.20 to $10.80 per flat) for blueberries, according to the Florida Agricultural Statistics Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That rose to an average $6.40 a pound ($23 a flat) in 2002 and $5.20 a pound ($18.72 a flat) in 2003.

The average price fell to $4.50 a pound ($16.20 a flat) last year, the most recent statistics available, but Florida also hit a record production of 5.6 million pounds and the highest crop value on record at $25.2 million. This year's production is expected to fall because the 2004 hurricanes defoliated many of the state's blueberry bushes, Braswell and Mixon said. "We're probably down about 10 percent," Mixon said. "That was not bad. Some were hurt a lot worse."

Braswell estimated Juliana Plantation's production fell more than 20 percent. But higher prices more than made up for lost production, Braswell said. He estimated the plantation would get an average of $27 to $28 per flat, compared with about $22 last year. Florida blueberry growers are responding by planting more acres. In addition to doubling its acreage next year, Juliana Plantation is building a 3,600-square-foot greenhouse to meet its own demand for new bushes. "With every Tom, Dick and Harry growing blueberries, there's a shortage of plants now," Braswell said.

Mixon is planning to add another 80 acres of blueberries by next year by pushing up orange groves at his Haines City farm, he said. The profitability in blueberries is attracting growers from Michigan and other northern states, Braswell said. Michigan is the top U.S. blueberry grower with 15,900 acres in 2004 followed by New Jersey with 7,500 acres, USDA statistic show. Mixon said he didn't see a large influx of out-of-state growers, but he agreed most of the large commercial growers in Florida are planting new acreage. "All of us are expanding," Mixon said. "Will it double between now and 2015? I can't see it, but it might."

But both growers agreed blueberry expansion could halt under the same pressure many analysts predict for the so-called bubble market in real estate -- high land prices. When the Juliana Plantation partners were looking at land in the Green Swamp 19 months ago, they could have purchased it for $3,750 an acre, Braswell said. Today the owner wants $15,000. Upfront costs also pose a significant obstacle to developing or expanding a blueberry farm, Braswell and Mixon agreed. They estimated the cost at $10,000 to $15,000 an acre. New growers also would need to invest about $2,200 an acre for caretaking costs for three years until the bushes begin producing a commercial crop, Braswell said.

The Florida blueberry boom is also beginning to attract speculators with no previous experience in agriculture, he added. Braswell includes himself in that category, although he earned a bachelor's degree in agronomy from the University of Florida in 1979. "Honestly, the only thing I'd grown before I planted this was a couple tomato plants, and I watched them die," Braswell said. But Braswell supplemented his degree with a lot of homework about growing blueberries, he said. It also helped to start small with two acres.

"A lot of people don't know what they're doing," Braswell said. "They want to buy varieties that have proven not to grow in Florida because the bushes cost less. They're bound to fail." But for the larger growers who can keep caretaking costs low and production high, the future still looks bright even if the market turns down, the growers said. "I tell everybody going into blueberries that the low-cost, high-yield producers are going to win in the long run," Mixon said. "It's going to require becoming committed to blueberries."

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