WILL SOUTH FLORIDA'S LEADERS LEARN TO PRESERVE AGRICULTURE

 AND DIVERSIFY THE ECONOMY POST PANDEMIC?

I remember years ago, talking to a person who distributed produce from a rail head in Allapattah – before it became the next Wynwood-like hot spot for artsy urban development.

When I asked if the produce came from the Redland, the person laughed at me.  He told me virtually all of it comes from the seaport, a little from the airport.

He said it will always be cheaper to grow fresh food in South America, Central America, Mexico, even farther flung places and ship it through Port Miami and MIA.

Well, what happens when there is a pandemic or some other global crisis? What happens when the source nation (wisely) needs to hold onto its produce to feed its own?

What happens when the cost of fuel makes it no longer viable to depend on places hundreds to thousands of miles away for Miami’s essential fresh food?

What happens, because of pandemic or other cause the cargo planes stop flying, the cargo ship arrivals are reduced to a tiny fraction of typical sea traffic?

I hope, when live returns to something resembling normal, that our elected and appointed leaders prevent any land suitable for agriculture from being turned into pavement and rooftops.

I hope they pay more than lip service to diversifying the economy. The under write and subsidize billionaires every day. Those taxpayer funds used to enrich the richest could be redirected as seed money for organic farming on a scale never before undertaken here.

I hope they ignore the endless influence of mega wealthy donors who want tourism and concrete to be the be all and end all for greater Miami’s economy till the end of days.

I’m an optimist, but if we keep greenlighting projects that pave over precious agricultural land and perpetuate policy that forces a huge portion of our residents to pay half their gross income to put a roof over their head – I think South Florida’s end of days may come much sooner than later.

WILL SOUTH FLORIDA'S LEADERS LEARN TO PRESERVE AGRICULTURE

AND DIVERSIFY THE ECONOMY POST PANDEMIC?

While I very much appreciate greater Miami’s two ports – the sea one and air one – I wonder if they have doomed us.

For two decades, I have lived in South Florida, I have heard city, county, state and federal elected officials talk about diversifying our economy.

Yes it seems like we are reliant, to a terrifyingly high percentage, on what comes in via plane (tourists and cargo) and by ship (cargo and tourists.)

No matter who much we talk about creating better paying jobs, almost everyone works in a low-paying job serving tourists or moving products. What there is of a middle class works in designing, building, maintaining, etc. the roads, buildings, houses, stores that support the service class.

Clearly, about 20% of Miami workers have already lost their jobs and maybe up to half (because our economy is so dependent on the jobs that disappear the most quickly when crisis comes) will be hit with either layoffs, reduced hours, reduced pay, reduced benefits, or paying higher share of their healthcare.

That is terrifying but what scares me even more is the way I’ve seen the Redland and other agricultural areas reduced for development. Real estate development is just about as flimsy as depending on waiter/barkeep/maid/line cook/pool attendant to fuel your economy.

And once a chunk of the Redland is paved over for houses, apartments, strip malls – it is gone forever.

Our leaders have even allowed industrial park/warehouse distribution to be developed within the area supposedly reserved forever as territory outside the urban development boundary.

I’m no farmer, but I imagine lots of things don’t grow as well in the subtropics as the heartland, but I bet we could create five or tenfold more produce if we hadn’t allowed sprawl in Homestead proper and the Redland in general.

(PART 2 -- CONCLUSION -- TOMORROW)