Pandemic Produce: Impacts of COVID-19 on Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries

Abstract

Florida has one of the most diverse agricultural economies in the United States, producing several dozen types of fruits and vegetables that are consumed within the state, across the country, and around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting policy responses occurred during the peak of spring harvest season for many crops in Florida, abruptly removing market demand from the food service industry and shifting consumer purchasing habits, which enabled insights into several aspects of the fruit and vegetable supply chain. This article examines how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted fruit and vegetable industries in Florida, how these industries responded to COVID-19 impacts, and how Florida’s experience compared to that of other states. Data are derived from several sources including a statewide survey that measured agricultural production losses in Florida resulting from COVID-19 in early 2020, interviews with Florida operations that provided insights into how the pandemic induced change across the food supply chain, and a survey of food supply chain operations in three regions of the United States conducted in 2021.

Full text

Christa D. Court*, David Outerbridge, Lauri Baker, Laura Birou, Catherine Campbell, Gigi DiGiacomo,
Sebastian Galindo, John Lai, Alexandre Magnier, Michelle Miller, Gustavo de L. T. Oliveira,
Eyrika Orlando, Hikaru Hanawa Peterson, Xiaohui Qiao, Fritz Roka, Andrew Ropicki, Bijeta Bijen Saha,
Andrew W. Stevens and Li Zhang
Pandemic Produce: Impacts of COVID-19 on
Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries
https://doi.org/10.1515/jafio-2022-0025
Received July 2, 2022; accepted November 21, 2022
Abstract: Florida has one of the most diverse agricultural
economies in the United States, producing several dozen
types of fruits and vegetables that are consumed within the
state, across the country, and around the world. The
COVID-19 pandemic and resulting policy responses occurred
during the peak of spring harvest season for many crops in
Florida, abruptly removing market demand from the food
service industry and shifting consumer purchasing habits,
which enabled insights into several aspects of the fruit and
vegetable supply chain. This article examines how the
COVID-19 pandemic impacted fruit and vegetable industries
in Florida, how these industries responded to COVID-19
impacts, and how Florida’s experience compared to that of
other states. Data are derived from several sources including
a statewide survey that measured agricultural production
losses in Florida resulting from COVID-19 in early 2020,
interviews with Florida operations that provided insights
into how the pandemic induced change across the food
supply chain, and a survey of food supply chain operations in
three regions of the United States conducted in 2021.
Keywords: COVID-19, fruits and vegetables, economic
impacts
1 Introduction
Florida has approximately 47,500 farms operating on 9.7
million acres across the state (USDA National Agricultural
Statistics Services 2022). The state has a sub-tropical climate
that varies significantly (USDA hardiness zones 8a–11a)
from North to South, which enables production of an
immense variety of food, fiber, and ornamental commod-
ities worth an estimated $10.16 billion in 2018 (UF/IFAS
2021). Unrefined commodities are harvested and packed for
fresh markets or converted into finished products by food
processing and manufacturing industries. Finished goods
then move through the wholesale and retail distribution
chains to final consumers or to other industries as inter-
mediate goods for further value-added processing. These
industries are also linked to a broad array of allied sup-
pliers that provide production inputs and related support-
ing services. Altogether, the industries involved in the
supply of goods and services to agricultural operations and
those involved in the production, harvesting, packing,
processing, and distribution of agricultural products
comprise the agricultural supply chain (Weersink et al.
*Corresponding author: Christa D. Court, Food and Resource Economics
Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA,
E-mail: ccourt@ufl.edu. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2690-9015
David Outerbridge, Lee County Extension, University of Florida, Ft. Myers,
FL, USA, E-mail: douterbridge@ufl.edu
Lauri Baker and Sebastian Galindo, Department of Agricultural
Education and Communication, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA,
E-mail: lauri.m.baker@ufl.edu (L. Baker), sgalindo@ufl.edu (S. Galindo)
Laura Birou, Department of Management Studies, College of Business,
University of Michigan Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA,
E-mail: lbirou@umich.edu
Catherine Campbell, Department of Family, Youth and Community
Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA,
E-mail: cgcampbell@ufl.edu
Gigi DiGiacomo and Hikaru Hanawa Peterson, Department of Applied
Economics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA,
E-mail: gigid@umn.edu (G. DiGiacomo), hhp@umn.edu (H.H. Peterson)
John Lai, Eyrika Orlando, Xiaohui Qiao, Andrew Ropicki and Bijeta
Bijen Saha, Food and Resource Economics Department, University of
Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, E-mail: johnlai@ufl.edu (J. Lai),
e.orlando@ufl.edu (E. Orlando), xiaohui.qiao@ufl.edu (X. Qiao),
aropicki@ufl.edu (A. Ropicki), bijetabijen@ufl.edu (B.B. Saha)
Alexandre Magnier, Center for Agribusiness, Florida Gulf Coast University,
Ft. Myers, FL, USA, E-mail: amagnier@fgcu.edu
Michelle Miller, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, University of
Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA, E-mail: mmmille6@wisc.edu
Gustavo de L. T. Oliveira, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University,
Worcester, MA, USA, E-mail: GuOliveira@clarku.edu
Fritz Roka, Department of Economics and Finance, Florida Gulf Coast
University, Ft. Myers, FL, USA, E-mail: froka@fgcu.edu
Andrew W. Stevens, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics,
University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA,
E-mail: awstevens@wisc.edu. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0960-5535
Li Zhang, Department of Anthropology and Sociology and Department of
Environmental Studies, Amherst College, Amherst, MA, USA,
E-mail: lzhang@amherst.edu
Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization 2022; aop

2021). Excluding those agricultural products that are not for
human consumption, the food supply chain can be defined
as the actors, activities, relationships, and resources
involved in supplying, producing, harvesting, packing,
processing, and distributing a food product to a consumer
(Weersink et al. 2021).
In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared
a pandemic associated with the novel coronavirus disease
(COVID-19), caused by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. In
response to concerns about the infection rate and severity of
COVID-19, many local- and national-level government
agencies around the world enacted restrictive public health
measures, and in some cases altered the regulatory context
within which businesses operated to limit human interac-
tion while ensuring continued provision of essential
goods and services, such as food, healthcare, and education
(Aiyar and Pingali 2020). Where possible, many industries
rapidly converted to or increased use of digital environ-
ments both for business operations as well as marketing and
sales to limit potential losses (Kniffin et al. 2021; Spicer 2020).
Supply chains adapted to both the threat of the virus and the
changes in supply and demand that resulted from public
health measures intended to respond to this threat. In many
industries, especially those deemed non-essential, forced
and voluntary business closures affected the supply of goods
and services. Within segments of the economy that were
deemed essential, which included the food supply chain,
owners and/or supervisors had to adapt workplace envi-
ronments and practices to mitigate risk of viral transmission
among workers and between workers and customers.
Employee absences due to illness or quarantine and the
implementation of physical distancing measures within the
workplace also altered production capacity and timing
within firms that remained operational.
Over time, local behavioral changes had global eco-
nomic consequences and the COVID-19 pandemic provided
a unique opportunity to analyze global supply chains
(Court et al. 2021; Ferreira et al. 2021). The economic impacts
to agricultural production, resulting from both supply- and
demand-side shocks brought about by the COVID-19
pandemic, have been widely studied (ERA Economics, LLC
2020; Maria del Rio-Chanona et al. 2020; Workie et al. 2020).
Unfortunately, much of the information and insights
gleaned from these studies cannot be generalized outside of
the commodity group(s) investigated or the geographic and
temporal scale of the analysis due to the different contexts
within which agricultural producers operate across these
domains. Factors such as seasonal production cycles,
COVID-19 case rates, local, state, and federal policy responses
to COVID-19 case rates, regulatory frameworks within which
producers operate, consumer behavior and preferences, and
many others vary across time, space, and commodity. As
such, additional research is necessary across geographies
and time to inform a complete understanding of COVID-19’s
impact on various agricultural and food systems around the
world. Florida’s diverse fruit and vegetable production ca-
pacity as well as the unique seasonal, supply chain, and
market contexts within which it operates enabled insights
into several aspects of COVID-19 impacts on the fruit and
vegetable supply chain.
This article describes how the COVID-19 pandemic
impacted industries involved in the fruit and vegetable
supply chain in Florida, how these industries responded, and
how the experience of Florida’s fruit and vegetable
industries compared to that of some other states. Data to
support this article are derived from several sources:
a statewide survey that measured the agricultural produc-
tion losses in Florida resulting from COVID-19 in early 2020,
qualitative interviews with producers in Florida throughout
2020 that provided insights into how the pandemic induced
changes, and a survey of food supply chain operations in
three regions of the United States conducted in 2021. Section
2 provides the necessary context for this study, Section 3
describes the methodologies used for data collection, and
Section 4 delineates the quantitative and qualitative results
of the research team’s investigation into the impacts of
COVID-19 on Florida’s fruit and vegetable industries. Section
5 provides insights from comparing and contrasting Flori-
da’s experience with that of other regions in the United
States and Section 6 concludes and offers insights on the
future of overall food system resilience.
2 Background
COVID-19 infections and policies affected global agricultural
supply chains around the world, often highlighting dis-
parities, rigidities, vulnerabilities, and inequalities in food
security, agricultural labor supply, input supply, food
transportation and storage, and cross-border trade of goods
and services (Ahmed, Akter, and Majumder 2021; Alam and
Khatun 2021; FAO 2020; Global Alliance for Improved
Nutrition (GAIN) 2020; Yegbemey et al. 2021). As govern-
ments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) rushed
to measure the magnitude of impacts and determine the
various forms of relief needed along the supply chain, they
also had to consider pre-existing strains on or events
affecting the systems (i.e. account for the impacts of com-
pound or cascading disasters (Cutter 2018)) such as labor
shortages in India or droughts in Pakistan and Chad, which
can have a multiplying effect on supply chain impacts
(Ahmed, Akter, and Majumder 2021; Ali et al. 2020; Deaton
2C.D. Court et al.

and Deaton 2020; FAO 2020; Global Alliance for Improved
Nutrition (GAIN) 2020; Harris et al. 2020). This section
provides the necessary contextual information to examine
the impacts of COVID-19 on Florida’s fruit and vegetable
supply chain.
2.1 Impacts of COVID-19 on Fruit and
Vegetable Industries
Fruits and vegetables are labor-intensive specialty crops,
requiring much more labor than field crops such as wheat,
soybean, and corn, which generally rely on mechanization
for harvest (UF/IFAS 2021). According to Huffet al. (2015), a
reduction in the available agricultural labor force of more
than 25% could make even the most developed countries
food insecure. Amidst the pandemic, labor supply for
agricultural harvest was not affected equally around the
world, with variations largely influenced by differences in
COVID-19-induced policies related to international travel.
CountriessuchasCanadaandtheUnitedStatesrecognized
that the seasonal harvests of specialty crops could be
affected by restrictions on international travel due to their
reliance on seasonal foreign guest workers and relaxed
restrictions for entry of these individuals (Department of
Homeland Security 2020; Lee 2020). In some cases where
entry would have been allowed, policies related to depar-
ture or transit created a situation whereby laborers were
still not able to make the trip, which still resulted in labor
shortages (Deaton and Deaton 2020; Faus and Hunt 2021;
IHS Markit 2020; Szelewa and Polakowski 2022). In other
cases, such as India’s, strict regulations on domestic pop-
ulation movements made it difficult or impossible for
migratory laborers to travel between regions of the coun-
try, which significantly affected the production and harvest
of many fruit and vegetable crops (Ahmed, Akter, and
Majumder 2021).
Many fruits and vegetables are highly perishable in
their raw commodity form, with short windows of oppor-
tunity to harvest, pack, and distribute for processing or fresh
consumption. The need for timely harvesting, packing
(either on-farm or at a packinghouse), and distribution made
fruit and vegetable industries particularly vulnerable to
delays induced by absenteeism related to illness or risk
preferences, slowdowns in packing and distribution related
to the implementation of physical distancing measures for
employees, labor shortages beyond the farmgate, and
changes in demand, especially for products to be consumed
away from home. In some cases, such delays resulted in
significant on-farm losses as well as spoiled products along
the supply chain, which were documented at the national
level for the United States (Johnson 2020), for the State of
California (ERA Economics, LLC 2020; Goodrich, Kiesel, and
Bruno 2021), in China (Gu and Wang 2020), in Canada
(Richards et al. 2020), and in other Organization for Eco-
nomic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries
(OECD 2020). Conversely, there is also evidence that con-
sumer demand and purchasing patterns for shelf-stable
products were more volatile than for perishable goods in the
initial phase of the pandemic, largely due to panic buying or
hoarding of canned goods and processed food products
(Hobbs 2020; Ker and Cardwell 2020; Yuen et al. 2020),
allowing food retailers to maintain relatively stable stocks of
most fresh fruit and vegetable products to satisfy relatively
stable demand (Johnson 2020; OECD 2020; Richards et al.
2020). Moreover, some fresh fruit and vegetable products are
relatively fungible at the farm level in terms of marketing for
consumer retail versus restaurants/catering/food service,
and between sales for fresh markets and sales for processors
(e.g., frozen or canned vegetables, food industry, etc.). The
degree to which such shifts could compensate for changes in
national or global market demand was highly dependent on
size of demand and availability of processing capacity at a
local and regional level.
Smallholder farms in developing countries operated in a
different context, largely avoiding mass labor shortages
during sowing and harvest seasons by hiring family mem-
bers (Alam and Khatun 2021). However, delays related to lack
of transportation, facility closures, and lack of available cold
storage meant that farmers still had to make adjustments to
sell their perishable fruit and vegetable products quickly,
often resorting to short-selling their crops rather than
waiting for a fair market value (Alam and Khatun 2021;
Harris et al. 2020). Lower income from sales, combined with
a limited access to or ability to secure loans, impacted
decisions related to purchasing input supplies –some of
which were also experiencing shortages –for the next sea-
son. These hindrances put many farmers in particularly dire
situations, especially in lower-income countries such as
Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh, and negatively
affected food security (Ahmed, Akter, and Majumder 2021;
Deaton and Deaton 2020; FAO 2020; Global Alliance for
Improved Nutrition (GAIN) 2020; Harris et al. 2020; Yegbe-
mey et al. 2021). Alam and Khatun (2021) and Ali et al. (2020)
mention that many farmers resorted to decreasing their
daily meal count as well as reducing more expensive,
protein-rich food sources from their diets to conserve their
cash for farm inputs.
With food supply chains around the world facing
uncertainty, national-level governments, international
organizations, and NGOs launched programs to safeguard
farmers and others involved in food supply chains and to
address rising numbers of individuals experiencing food
insecurity. The International Monetary Fund and World
Pandemic Produce: COVID-19 and Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries 3

Bank launched funded support programs for governments
and food system reforms (Ali et al. 2020). With the World
Food Program’s assistance, the Ministry of Agriculture,
Livestock, Fisheries, and Cooperatives in Kenya imple-
mented a monitoring program for food prices to combat
market fluctuations (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition
(GAIN) 2020). Likewise, the Nutritional North Program has
implemented price suppression mechanisms in rural Can-
ada, where market deliveries are flown in (Deaton and
Deaton 2020). The United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) set up the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program
(CFAP) through the Farm Service Agency, which aimed to
assist farmers with an average adjusted gross income of less
than $900,000 (United States Department of Agriculture –
Farm Service Agency 2020).
While the contexts within which fruit and vegetable in-
dustries operate vary around the world, the growingliterature
on the impacts of COVID-19 on fruit and vegetable industries
suggests that factors such as the evolution of COVID-19 in-
fections and policy responses, seasonal production cycles, and
regulatory frameworks played a significant role in deter-
mining the size, scope, and direction of these effects.
2.2 Evolution of COVID-19 and Related Policy
Responses in Florida
Beginning in March of 2020, in response to rising cumulative
case numbers, many states, including Florida, began imple-
menting policies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, which
varied in restrictiveness, implementation period, and plans
for reopening. These policies included, but were not limited
to, closure of K-12 schools, prohibition of mass gatherings,
limiting seating capacity in restaurants and bars, the closure
of non-essential businesses, and stay-at-home orders, etc. In
addition, some states announced state-level loan programs
and relief packages to support local and small businesses
that were negatively impacted by the ongoing pandemic.
Despite the implementation of the policies, by the end of
the first quarter of 2020, a rise in the number of total cases
was observed in Florida, which continued through the end of
the second quarter of 2020 (Figure 1). As a part of Florida’s
step-by-step plan for recovery, the second quarter of 2020
brought about an extension on some of the restrictive pol-
icies that were set in motion in the previous quarter, such as
stay-at-home orders and the suspension of vacation rentals
in the state, as well as planning and execution of phase-
wise reopening (Johns Hopkins University and Medicine
Coronavirus Resource Center 2022). Financial support such
as workers’compensation for first responders who were
exposed to COVID-19 on the job was also introduced. During
the third quarter of 2020, an executive order to reopen
almost all businesses in Florida was in place but later, on
December 29, 2020, a state of emergency was declared as the
number of cases continued to rise. Cases began to decline
going into 2021 and business operations largely returned to
pre-pandemic operating conditions. On April 29, 2021, Flor-
ida’s State Surgeon General issued a Public Health Advisory
that rescinded all previously issued public health advisories
related to COVID-19, expanded vaccine eligibility, and
encouraged in-person government operations and services
statewide. On May 3, 2021, Governor DeSantis announced
Executive Order #2021-102, suspending all remaining local
government mandates and restrictions based on the
COVID-19 State of Emergency. Florida experienced addi-
tional spikes in case rates in the summer of 2021 and near the
end of 2021, with no new policies enacted to combat these
surges (Johns Hopkins University and Medicine Coronavirus
Resource Center 2022).
2.3 Fruit and Vegetable Industries in Florida
Prior to the pandemic, Florida ranked third overall in the
United States for cash receipts in both fruit and nut crop sales
and vegetable, melon, and potato sales. Operations involved
in fruit and tree nut farming in Florida include, but are not
limited to, those growing citrus fruits, grapes, berries, trop-
ical fruit, and pecans. These operations harvested 407,000
acres in 2019, directly supporting more than 12,000 fulltime
and part-time jobs, with sales revenues of $1.05 billion (UF/
IFAS 2021). These types of crops are generally not grown from
seeds, have a perennial life cycle, and tend to be labor
intensive, especially when it comes to harvesting. Within this
commodity group, Florida ranked number one in the pro-
duction of oranges and grapefruit and number two in the
production of avocados, strawberries, and tangerines (UF/
IFAS 2021). Operations involved in vegetable, melon, and
potato farming include, but are certainly not limited to, those
growing tomatoes, squash, cabbage, watermelon, canta-
loupe, and potatoes. These operations harvested 200,000
acres in 2019, directly supporting more than 9000 fulltime
and part-time jobs, with sales revenues of $1.13 billion (UF/
IFAS 2021). These crops tend to have an annual or biannual
growth cycle, are often grown in open fields, and also tend to
be labor intensive. Within this commodity group, Florida
ranked number one in the production of snap beans, fresh
market cucumbers, bell peppers, and watermelons, number
two in the production of cabbage, sweet corn, and tomatoes,
and number three in squash (UF/IFAS 2021).
The marketing of Florida’s fruit and vegetable crops
varies greatly depending on the type of crop, size of opera-
tion, whether the products grown are for the fresh market or
destined to be processed, and the marketing goals of the
4C.D. Court et al.

individual company. Florida is primarily a specialty crop
state, defined as fruit and vegetable products grown without
the support of United States Department of Agriculture crop
subsidies. A sizable portion of Florida specialty crops are
exported out of state without significant processing. More
than 1.1 billion pounds of fresh tomatoes are shipped to other
states within the United States as well as to Canada and
abroad (The Florida Tomato Committee 2013). Much of the
packing of fresh vegetable products is handled by sizable
vertically-integrated operations that seek to be national,
year-round suppliers of specific produce products. For
example, Lipman Family Farms operates four east coast
farms located between south Florida and the Eastern Shore
of Maryland and one farm in California to handle west coast
markets. In addition, they have enlisted partnerships with 18
local farmers spread throughout the eastern and mid-
western states, as well as with 10 local partners in Mexico
and El Salvador (Lipman Family Farms 2022). For smaller
growers, most of their fresh produce is sold through com-
munity supported agriculture (CSA), roadside stands, and
farmers markets (Florida Department of Agriculture and
Consumer Services 2022a). Ninety-five percent of Florida’s
orange crop and more than 40% of Florida’s grapefruit crop
are processed into juice (Florida Department of Agriculture
and Consumer Services 2022b). Cooperatives tend to be more
prevalent among citrus growers and produce farmers. Citrus
World, Inc., home to Florida’s Natural juice brands, has been
a grower cooperative since 1933 (Citrus World Inc. 2022).
Dundee Citrus Growers Association started even earlier,
in 1924. Dundee Citrus Growers Association members focus
on marketing cartons of fresh citrus, and in the past few
years have expanded into blueberry and peach fresh fruits
sales (Dundee Citrus Growers Association 2022). Tropicana
and Minute Maid process citrus into various juice blends, but
wholly rely on independent growers to supply them with
their fruit.
Agricultural production of food products in Florida,
especially fruits and vegetables, is largely export driven,
providing much of the fresh produce consumed along the
east coast of the United States, especially throughout the
winter months, and sustenance to the many domestic and
international visitors who come to the state for tourism
purposes, staying in the many hotels, motels, amusement
parks, and vacation properties in-state or embarking on
cruises that depart from Florida ports (Campbell and
McAvoy 2020; UF/IFAS 2021; USDA National Agricultural
Statistics Services 2022). Unlike fruit and vegetable produc-
tion in most areas of the United States, the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic coincided with the peak harvesting and
sales phases of these industries in Florida. In addition, the
shutdown of institutional markets, such as cruise lines,
hotels, and restaurants, caused an abrupt disruption in
large-scale sales for many commercial fresh fruit and
vegetable producers in Florida. Hundreds of acres of highly
perishable crops such as tomatoes, green beans, and sweet
corn were destroyed as crop maintenance and harvest costs
loomed with little to no market remaining for sales (Camp-
bell and McAvoy 2020; Campbell, Rihn, and Campbell 2021).
3 Methodology
Results in this article were derived from two separate data
collection tools: the 2020 Florida Agriculture and Aquaculture
Figure 1: Daily case rate per 100,000 population
between January 2020 and December 2021.
Pandemic Produce: COVID-19 and Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries 5

COVID-19 Assessment, a survey of Florida agricultural pro-
ducers distributed in early 2020 to gather information on
losses resulting from COVID-19 and qualitative interviews
with Florida-based food supply chain operations throughout
2020, which provided insights into how the pandemic induced
change in businesses operations.
3.1 2020 Florida Agriculture and
Aquaculture COVID-19 Assessment
Early in the pandemic, a team of researchers from the
University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural
Science (UF/IFAS) adapted an established survey tool
developed for assessing the agricultural impacts of natural
disasters (Court, Hodges, and Lollar 2020) to analyze the
impacts of COVID-19 on Florida agricultural producers,
here referred to as the 2020 Florida Agriculture and
Aquaculture COVID-19 Assessment. Survey design and dis-
tribution followed all guidelines and rules imposed on
human subjects research by the University of Florida
Institutional Review Board (IRB202000642). The survey
instrument was pre-tested with Florida Cooperative
Extension faculty and agents to help ensure questions were
well aligned with respondents and once approved, train-
ings were provided to individuals within the Florida
Cooperative Extension System (CES) on the administration
of the survey so that fielding of the survey could progress
smoothly and they could assist with the collection of
responses from Florida’s agricultural producers. The sur-
vey was fielded from April 16, 2020 to May 15, 2020, col-
lecting responses from agricultural operations, inclusive of
aquaculture, throughout the State of Florida using the
online platform Qualtrics.
The survey instrument guided respondents through a
series of questions beginning with informed consent,
introductory baseline questions, operation status, produc-
tion, impacts, and closing questions. Respondents to the
survey were recruited through a two-layer approach. The
first layer consisted of two announcements broadcasted
widely in the media with links to the online survey
instrument. The first announcement was on April 16, fol-
lowed by a second announcement on May 4 (e.g. Roma-
guera 2020a, 2020b). The second approach utilized referrals
via the established networks of state extension specialists,
county extension agents, and agricultural communities
throughout Florida.
Data collected from respondents of the 2020 Florida
Agriculture and Aquaculture COVID-19 Assessment were
summarized across Florida’s major commodity groups.
This information provided a snapshot of the status for each
commodity with respect to businesses impacts. Multiple
key areas were emphasized, and respondents were asked to
consider year over year changes in their agribusiness as it
related to: operations that were open or closed for busi-
nesses, impacts to demand for labor, prevalence of finan-
cial constraints, COVID-19-related alterations to normal
business operations, revenue and operating impacts
generated by COVID-19, changes due to COVID-19 in
the processing and transportation- or logistics-related
challenges that arose. These measures demonstrate the
magnitude of impacts on Florida’s agricultural operations,
help identify areas where the greatest challenges were
being faced, and commodity areas with the greatest needs
stemming from the turbulent business environment
resulting from COVID-19 disruptions.
3.2 Interviews with Florida Fruit and
Vegetable Supply Chain Operations
Following the 2020 Florida Agriculture and Aquaculture
COVID-19 Assessment, and in the interest of following an
explanatory sequential design (Creswell and Clark 2017),
faculty members at UF/IFAS and Florida Gulf Coast Uni-
versity (FGCU) devised a research framework (Outerbridge
et al. 2022) to conduct semi-structured interviews to gain a
deeper understanding of the shifts, adaptations, and in-
novations occurring within Florida’s food system. The
research team developed a standardized interview guide
(i.e. set of question banks) to guide conversations between
research team members, engaged representatives of Flor-
ida’s CES, and food system stakeholders with a distinct set
of questions for 15 different sectors within Florida’sfood
system (Outerbridge et al. 2022). Selected food system sec-
tors were based on consultations between researchers in
the fields of economics, agronomics, business, supply chain,
and sustainable food systems, and educators within the
Florida CES that specialize in family and consumer sci-
ences, agriculture, livestock, dairy, small farms, and hor-
ticulture. To provide contextualization and insights on the
experiences of fruit and vegetable industries in Florida
during the COVID-19 pandemic, this article summarizes the
insights gained from interviews with 36 companies directly
or indirectly involved in the fruit and vegetable supply
chain representing Production Agriculture, including small
farms (14 participants), Processing and Packing (five par-
ticipants), Retail Distribution (three participants) and Food-
6C.D. Court et al.

related NGOs (14 participants). Interview guides for these
categories are provided in Appendix A: Relevant Interview
Guides. Questions were focused on specific areas of interest
to the research team that applied to all participants,
including risk management, impacts, labor, new partner-
ships, regulation, and observed market changes. Optional
follow-up questions and prompts were provided, tailored to
gain more detailed information, while cohering with the
standardized interview guide.
Interview subjects were recruited through referrals via
established stakeholder networks of UF/IFAS Extension and
FGCU and a snowball sampling technique, which is desir-
able to identify hard-to-reach populations with specific
knowledge or expertise (Goodman 2011). The interview
effort was also mentioned in news media (e.g. Romaguera
2020b) and webinars presenting quantitative results from
the 2020 Florida Agriculture and Aquaculture COVID-19
Assessment. Interviews were conducted from July 2020
through September 2021. The long data collection period
allowed examination of the initial experiences and
responses to the pandemic, as well as the evolving experi-
ences of the producers, processors, and distributors inter-
viewed. Both institutions followed all guidelines and rules
imposed on human subjects research by their respective
Institutional Review Boards (IRB202001435, Protocol ID
#2020-49). Participants were owners, high-level managers,
or directors who could speak knowledgeably of their
respective company or organization’s experiences during
the COVID-19 pandemic and were not monetarily compen-
sated for their participation.
The technological framework of digital meetings,
transcription, analysis, and storage enabled this broad data
gathering effort across the state. On average, the interviews
were conducted by individual project team members via
Zoom web conferencing technology and lasted an average
of 35 min. Following the data collection, the individual
interviewers edited the Zoom transcription files and sub-
mitted them to the core research group. This core group of
5–6 developed a coding structure (Saldanña and Omasta
2022) based on the specific research interests and codified
the interviews in batches according to the food system
sector. The coding structure used for qualitative data
analysis is provided in Appendix B: Coding Structure for the
Qualitative Analysis of Interviews. Thematic analysis
methods and NVivo qualitative data analysis software
(QSR International Pty Ltd., NVivo 12 Plus) were used to
analyze the semi-structured interview transcripts (Nowell
et al. 2017). Deductive coding was used based on expecta-
tions informed by the academic literature as well as
inductive coding to identify emergent, unanticipated topics
and ideas.
4 COVID-19 Experiences of Fruit
and Vegetable Industries in
Florida
4.1 Quantitative Survey: Production Losses
Due to COVID-19
A total of 729 responses were collected, of which 424
were complete. While partial responses were also kept as
part of the sample, outliers were identified and removed
to help ensure accurate reporting. Among all respondents,
65% of responses were involvedinproductionagriculture
(farming,ranching,forestry,aquaculture,etc.),8%were
involved in post-harvest processing of agricultural prod-
ucts (packing, drying, ginning, milling, etc.), 9% were
involved in the transportation of agricultural products,
and 18% indicated involvement in other sectors. Responses
were received from nearly all counties in Florida and
were concentrated in areas with relatively higher levels
of agricultural activities. The sample collected through
this survey consisted of about 39% small agricultural
operations (as defined by the USDA
1
), with the remainder
classified as midsize or large operations.
Results for production agriculture operations suggest
that the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic varied by com-
modity. The estimated statewide losses in Florida agricul-
tural sales revenues experienced in the March to mid-May
2020 period by commodity group using information on
annual sales revenues (five-year average), estimates of the
proportion (%) of annual revenue that is typically collected
in the March –mid-May period, and survey results on per-
centage losses due to COVID-19 are summarized in Table 1.
On average, all commodity groups reported losses due to the
COVID-19 pandemic for the March to mid-May 2020 period
analyzed. The nursery and greenhouse group experienced
the largest economic losses ($445 million), followed by fruit
and tree nuts ($189 million), and vegetables, melons, and
potatoes ($129 million). Responses
2
for operations producing
fruits and tree nuts and/or vegetables, melons, and potatoes
suggest that the onset of the pandemic caused both com-
modity groups to experience losses, an average of 32.9% and
1The USDA defines a small operation as one whose revenues are $250,
000 and less (Hoppe, Macdonald, and Korb 2010).
2The number of responses varied across commodity groups and the
questions targeted toward assessing the impacts of the pandemic. For
example, for the vegetables, melons, and potatoes industry, and the
fruits and nuts industry, there were 78 and 59 responses that reported
planted acreage, whereas there were only 29 and 17 responses that
reported losses in terms of planted acreage, respectively.
Pandemic Produce: COVID-19 and Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries 7

48.41% losses, respectively, as a percentage of total planted
acres.
3
,
4
The impacts of COVID-19 on production agriculture also
varied geographically. Geographic variation in economic
losses experienced across counties within the state from
March to mid-May of 2020 by agricultural commodity group
are shown in Figure 2. In this figure, the size of the pie chart
represents the total losses in dollars with each section of the
pie chart representing the losses by agricultural commodity
group. County-level losses were estimated assuming that the
county-level breakdown of revenue by quarter/month
matches that of a particular commodity group at the state
level, as displayed in Table 1. Considering all commodity
groups, Miami-Dade County suffered the highest total agri-
cultural losses ($133 million), followed by Palm Beach County
($81 million) and Hillsborough County ($66 million). The
geographic variation in economic losses specific to fruit and
tree nut production and vegetable, melon, and potato
production experienced from March to mid-May of 2020
across Florida counties are displayed in Figure 3. Overall,
losses for the fruit and vegetable industries were concen-
trated in southern Florida, particularly in Hendry, Hills-
borough, Polk, and Palm Beach Counties, which were
actively harvesting their spring crops during the period
assessed.
Respondents from both commodity groups reported
altered customer bases, the implementation of social-
distancing measures for customers, and the implementa-
tion of social-distancing amongst employees as the major
changes experienced since the COVID-19 pandemic began to
impact their business. They also reported experiencing dis-
ruptions in selling or shipping goods or services, the inbound
supply chain, and both short- and long-term cash flow.
4.2 Qualitative Interviews: Experiences
Within and Beyond the Farm Gate
The qualitative interview effort was designed to provide
additional context and insights on how the COVID-19
pandemic affected food supply chain businesses. Thirty-six
interviews with individuals representing fruit and vegetable
supply chain operations were selected for analysis: pro-
duction (n = 14 interviews), processing (n = 5 interviews),
distribution (n = 3 interviews), and NGOs (n = 14 interviews)
(e.g. food banks, community gardens and public-school food
programs). These interviews were qualitatively analyzed
using the coding structure presented in Appendix B. Across
Table :Estimated losses in Florida agricultural sales revenues experienced in March to mid-May , by commodity group.
Total annual sales
revenues (five year
average, $millions)
% annual revenue
March to mid-May
Output at risk
($millions)
% loss from survey
(average with %
confidence interval)
Estimated losses
($ millions)
Field crops $. %$. −%$.
[−%, −%] [$.,$.]
Horticultural crops $. %$. −%$.
[−%, −%] [$.,$.]
Vegetable, melon, potatoes $. %$. −%$.
[−%, −%] [$.,$.]
Fruits and nuts $. %$. −%$.
[−%, −%] [$.,$.]
Livestock and aquaculture $. %$. −%$.
[−%, −%] [$.,$.]
Animal products (milk, honey, eggs) $. %$. −%$.
[−%, −%] [$.,$.]
Sum total $. $,. $.
[$.,.]
Results reported in  dollars. Estimates are for losses experienced in March –mid-May period of . Data on Total Annual Sales Revenues are from
USDA-NASS QuickStats and estimates of % Annual Revenue information were informed by conversations with producers, industry representatives, and
specialized Cooperative Extension agents.
3The average was calculated as a weighted average of responses
associated with tomato, pepper, herbs, lettuce, cucumber, greens,
squash, and watermelon for the Vegetables, Melons, and Potatoes
industry and of avocado, orange, citrus (other), and blueberries for the
Fruits and Tree Nuts industry.
4The average planted acreage and the average losses as a percentage of
planted acreage was much lower when the responses that reported zero
acres being planted and/or zero loss experienced –were considered. For
example, for the vegetable, melons, and potato industry, the average
planted acreage is 52.72 and the average loss is 14.03%, whereas for the
fruits and nuts industry the average planted acreage is 602.98 and the
average loss is 18.71%.
8C.D. Court et al.

the fruit and vegetable supply chain in Florida, two major
themes emerged as relevant to an operation’s ability to adapt
to and overcome pandemic conditions: prioritization of
personnel and community engagement. Each theme is
explored below including relevant excerpts from individual
fruit and vegetable supply chain operations.
4.2.1 Prioritization of Personnel
Agribusinesses across the supply chain were deemed
“essential,”and therefore did not shut down as a result of the
pandemic. Nearly all employers interviewed across the fruit
and vegetable supply chain noted heightened stress among
their workers, particularly among employees with children,
who now had to be home-schooled because of school clo-
sures. One participant stated:
Back to the spring, when this first started falling offa large popu-
lation of our workforce. We had about 23% of them leave within a
day of a lot of media about the virus. They just went home. For a
long time, that was their reaction. And so, they created an enor-
mous hardship on us. We typically try to work a 10-hour day (now)
our workforce (was) working 12 and 14 hours a day to compensate.
- Processing and Packing operation, Southwest Florida.
Companies addressed these concerns by prioritizing their
personnel. They accomplished this, in part, by providing
informational materials related to COVID-19, by being more
flexible with work hours, and by including “hazard pay”that
increased hourly wages by at least a dollar per hour. Select
participant comments in this respect include:
We made sure that everyone at our company knew the first week of
March, that no one was going to lose their job over this and we were
going to protect all of our employees. Both safety-wise, and also
their livelihood. And we were all in this together.
- Production Agriculture (including small farms) operation,
Southwest Florida.
…We would put out an email almost every day for a while, or
every other day, and there would be some updates on farm worker
safety.
- Production Agriculture (including small farms) operation,
Southwest Florida.
In addition, operations quickly altered their policies and
procedures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within the
workplace. Crop advisors and fertilizer and chemical rep-
resentatives were barred from entering onto farm proper-
ties. Farm supervisors and managers stopped attending
off-farm meetings. External and internal communications
moved to phone and video conferencing technologies. Social
distancing guidelines were implemented and administrative
staffwere sent home to work remotely. In the case of non-
profits, which heavily rely on volunteer labor, many of
whom are retirees, there was a particular concern about
their volunteer population being at a higher risk of devel-
oping severe cases of COVID-19. Some examples that partic-
ipants provided included:
Figure 2: Geographic variation in agricultural
economic losses caused by COVID-19 during
the period of March –mid-May 2020.
Pandemic Produce: COVID-19 and Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries 9

And so we took some measures, with sanitizing shared equipment
and stufflike that. I mean, it cost us some money, but it helps keep
people safe …We did not have to purchase masks for anyone. We
tried and couldn’t get a hold of any back then. And then they
became a little more available when that became more of the
protocol. The timing just kind of worked, but most people have
their own, they will just use face coverings, you know, makeshift
type of stuff.
- Production Agriculture (including small farms) operation,
Southwest Florida.
Figure 3: Economic losses of the fruits and tree nuts commodity group as well as the vegetables, melons, and potatoes commodity group due to
COVID-19 during the period of March –mid-May 2020.
10 C.D. Court et al.

We’re very actively making changes within our operations and
within the packing house. We’re putting physical barriers …clear
plastic in between graders, in between the packers. You know,
working on one way traffic, alternating break times, social
distancing. Just education, education, education …
- Processing and Packing operation, Southwest Florida.
4.2.2 Community Engagement
When asked to describe the implications of the COVID-19
pandemic on business operations and relationships, many
operations noted an increase in community engagement;
in some cases this engagement was actively solicited
through outreach and marketing, but in other cases, it
happened more naturally, highlighting a shift in consumer
behavior driven by an increased awareness of and inter-
action with local producers. Consumer behavior survey
research related to the purchasing of fresh fruits and veg-
etables during COVID-19 revealed slight increases in dollar
amount spent on fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the
first 18-months of the pandemic in a nationwide survey
(Baker, Peterson, and Boyer 2022). As one participant
stated:
So originally, we had maybe 5 or 10 people come in on a day. Now
we have hundreds and hundreds a day coming in. This past sea-
son was our best season ever, with the peaches, and that was
partly due to COVID. So unlike a lot of people, we had a positive
impact and that was due to the fact that the schools had gone into
spring break, and then they did not reopen …So we had a lot of
mothers coming out with their kids on these weekdays, in
particular, and then of course the weekend. So we were just a
free-for-all. I mean people literally came out of the woodwork
because it was something they could do outside. They had dis-
tance and we did put in some safety measures …And once the
work of that passed around Facebook, that’s our main media,
people started commenting and it was very, very positive and the
crowds picked up.
- Production Agriculture (including small farms) operation, Central
Florida.
Many producers, regardless of size, also reflected the senti-
ment of a responsibility to supply food to their communities
during uncertain times. Some of the related comments made
by participants include:
I’m willing to make sure I can sustain on very little, and I can still
produce. I can provide the community with ethical and more
products. Including fish, other vegetables and so forth …
- Production Agriculture (including small farms) operation,
Southwest Florida.
We had a line of cars around the block and were putting together
boxes all day. But even with the community engagement, the
amount we were able to shift was only about a container of
produce.
- Production Agriculture (including small farms) operation,
Southwest Florida.
Both NGOs and school food service programs saw substantial
increases in need of food and support from their commu-
nities. They emphasized the importance of new or existing
social connections and partnerships in facilitating their
response to the pandemic, which enabled them to leverage
their resources and infrastructure to respond to community
needs, even beyond merely providing food. Many NGO
interviewees also reported increased financial donations
and produce from local fruit and vegetable producers. For
example, one participant stated:
…So very proud of my staff. Very proud of our community who
stepped up being volunteers. We also had a teacher who came
across a farmer that had a lot of fresh corn and said, “I’d like to give
it away”. Then we worked with [him/her] to arrange that. They
ultimately delivered corn to four sites.
- Food-related NGO operation, Southwest Florida.
5 How was Florida’s Experience
Different from Other Regions?
In the latter half of 2020, the 2020 Florida Agriculture and
Aquaculture COVID-19 Assessment was adapted to survey
five agri-food supply chain segments: agricultural produc-
tion, food processing/manufacturing, grocery wholesaling,
food and beverage retailing, and restaurants.
5
This survey,
hereafter the 2021 Multi-Regional Food Supply Chain Survey,
was fielded in three regions of the United States (Florida,
California, and the combined two-state region of Minnesota
and Wisconsin) from February 1, 2021 to April 15, 2021 using
the online platform Qualtrics, following all guidelines and
rules imposed on human subjects research by the Institu-
tional Review Boards of all three institutions (University of
Florida, University of Minnesota, and University of Califor-
nia –Irvine) involved in data collection (IRB202002280,
STUDY00010619, and IRBAPP#15202).
The survey questionnaire ranged in length from 21 to 154
questions depending on business status (open, closed,
temporarily closed) and the supply chain segment(s) repre-
sented. Survey distribution lists were compiled from Data
5This survey was part of the project titled “Lessons from COVID-19:
Positioning Regional Food Supply Chains for Future Pandemics, Natural
Disasters and Human Made Crises”, which is supported by the Agri-
culture and Food Research Initiative, grant no. 2020-68006-33037, from
the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Pandemic Produce: COVID-19 and Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries 11

Axel/Reference Solutions and from private and non-profit
membership organizations representing all segments of the
agri-food supply chain. Postcards with a QR code linking to
the survey were also distributed by mail to businesses rep-
resenting the middle segments of the supply chain to
improve the response rate from these under-studied groups.
It is clear from the literature and our analyses of within-
state variation that the impacts of COVID-19 on operations
within the fruit and vegetable supply chain were highly
influenced by the degree to which production cycles
(or seasons) coincided with market disruptions resulting
from policies implemented to mitigate the spread of
COVID-19 at a local and national level. The 2021 Multi-
Regional Food Supply Chain Survey provided further
insights on this observation through a harmonized assess-
ment of two additional fruit and vegetable producing
regions (California and Minnesota-Wisconsin) with very
different evolutions of COVID-19 cases and policies as well
as very different production cycles.
Figure 4 compares the trend in the number of daily cases
per 100,000 population across two different states (California
and Florida) and the combined region of two other states,
Minnesota and Wisconsin. After implementing policies
restricting interaction in response to rising case rates in the
first quarter of 2020, California gradually started reopening
lower-risk workplaces in the second quarter of 2020, along
with updating guidance on providing safer environments for
workers, resuming delayed medical care, and mandating
face coverings. As the number of cumulative cases doubled
within less than a month, restaurants and indoor businesses
were shut down for the second time in all counties in mid-
July. California experienced the sharpest surge in the num-
ber of daily cases per 100,000 from the last quarter of 2020
through the end of the first quarter of 2021 and 2020, ending
with an extended regional stay-at-home order, as intensive
care unit capacity could not match the massive surge in
number of cases. California fully reopened its economy
during the second quarter of 2021, as the number of new
cases declined. In July of 2021 there was another surge in the
number of cases but no new restrictive policies were initi-
ated (Johns Hopkins University and Medicine Coronavirus
Resource Center 2022).
During the second quarter of 2020, Minnesota extended
a stay-at-home order initiated in the first quarter of 2020,
although elective surgeries, operating food trucks, and
limited outdoor dining, along with some indoor venues,
began to re-open. During late June, applications for relief
grants were accepted to consider support for small business
owners. In Wisconsin, during the same quarter, several state
parks, forests, and recreational areas re-opened with the
requirement of maintaining social distancing amongst visi-
tors and limiting the size of the crowd. Relief packages and
grant programs were introduced to support ethnically
diverse micro-businesses and those who were at risk for
financial hardship. In Wisconsin, an executive order
requiring face coverings statewide was declared in the third
quarter of 2020, and a new stay-at-home order went into
effect as the number of total cases increased significantly
over the previous quarter. For the combined region of
Minnesota and Wisconsin, the trend in the number of total
cases per 100,000 population escalated the most between the
third quarter of 2020 and second quarter of 2021, enticing
Minnesota to enact new restrictions on social gatherings,
bars, and restaurants. Both states initiated further economic
relief packages to support small businesses. Minnesota
loosened restrictions for many indoor services to run with a
limited capacity in early January 2021. Further measures
were taken to reopen the economy but still the businesses
were encouraged to run at a lower capacity than usual.
All restrictive measures were relaxed by mid-March of 2021
Figure 4: Trend in the daily case rate per
100,000 population across three different
regions: Florida, California, and the combined
region of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
12 C.D. Court et al.

(Johns Hopkins University and Medicine Coronavirus
Resource Center 2022).
Ten fruit and vegetable crops grown in Florida, deemed
significant crops for the state based on their total planted
acreage, value per acre, Florida’s ranking within national
sales, and labor intensity, were selected for comparison
across the regions. Figure 5 shows the planting and har-
vesting calendar of these 10 crops in Florida, California,
and Minnesota-Wisconsin (there are no avocado or citrus
crops in Minnesota-Wisconsin). Most of these crops have
long growing periods in Florida and California, and short
growing periods in Minnesota-Wisconsin. Moreover, the
specific months for planting and harvesting vary signifi-
cantly across regions due to differences in climate. Specif-
ically, the primary growing seasons for these crops in
Florida are from September to May, with only a few crops
able to grow through summer (June to August) amid the
humidity, heat, and abundant rainfall. The primary
growing seasons for these crops in California and
Minnesota-Wisconsin are both around summer from May
to October. At the time of the COVID-19 lockdown in March
2020, most of these 10 crops were ready for harvesting in
Florida, while these crops in the other two states were
mostly out of season. Therefore, except for avocado, the
onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020
coincided with the peak harvesting period of these crops in
Florida. Florida producers were left with hundreds of
millions of pounds of produce with no available market
(Campbell and McAvoy 2020).
Results from the 2021 Multi-Regional Food Supply Chain
Survey suggest that sales revenue losses for fruit and vege-
table producers in California were highest in the second
quarter of 2020, but persistent across the year as producers
serving institutional markets scrambled to redirect large
Florida
Crop Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Avocado
Blueberry
Cabbage
Cucumber
Orange
Pepper
Strawberry
Sweet Corn
Tomato
Watermelon
California
Crop Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Avocado
Blueberry
Cabbage
Cucumber
Orange
Pepper
Strawberry
Sweet Corn
Tomato
Watermelon
Minnesota-Wisconsin
Crop Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Blueberry
Cabbage
Cucumber
Pepper
Strawberry
Sweet Corn
Tomato
Watermelon
Figure 5: Planting and harvesting seasons of major fruit and vegetable crops in Florida, California, and Minnesota.
Pandemic Produce: COVID-19 and Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries 13

volumes of products. Changes in sales revenues for fruit and
vegetable producers in Minnesota-Wisconsin were almost
non-existent, potentially owing to the smaller scale of pro-
duction in this region and the later production season, which
afforded growers time to plan and adjust to market
disruptions.
Like Florida, southern California shares a large scale
and diversified fruit and vegetable industry, and the onset
of COVID-19 cases and public health measures were roughly
simultaneous (ERA Economics, LLC 2020). Much of Cal-
ifornia’sfruitandvegetableindustryisalsoexported
outside the state, including to national markets within the
United States that also consume Florida produce. Given the
relatively long planting and harvesting calendar for many
of these crops in both California and Florida, there are both
overlap and complementarities across both states. In the
case of oranges, for example, both Florida and southern
California harvest nearly year-round, but Florida’s oranges
are used primarily for processing into juice while Cal-
ifornia’s oranges are largely intended for the fresh market.
Florida harvests peppers starting in November and mainly
from March to May, while in California peppers are har-
vested mainly from July to early December. Seasonal
complementarity is also evidenced in refrigerated truck
movements. Therefore, the initial disruptions due to the
onset of the pandemic in the United States during spring
2020 affected Florida’s harvesting, packing, and processing
of peppers more than California’s, and Florida’scitrusop-
erations might have been impacted by a dramatic increase
in demand for orange juice, presumably due to its reputa-
tion as a healthy beverage containing Vitamin C and other
nutrients (Heng, Zansler, and House 2020). According to
(Florida Department of Citrus (FDOC) 2020), the value of
sales of orange juice at grocery stores rose 50.7% in April
2020, as compared to the same period in the previous year.
The extent to which increased demand will persist or yield
positive impacts for the citrus industry in Florida remains
unclear (Court, Ferreira, and Cruz 2021).
There is evidence that for some California fruit and
vegetable crops, such as tomatoes and various nuts, there
were some shifts from sales for fresh markets towards
processing (Goodrich, Kiesel, and Bruno 2021), which might
indicate a difference with Florida where there is far less
in-state processing of fruits and vegetables. On the other
hand, these shifts were the exception and not the rule, and
California-focused studies seem to reflect a general national
trend, where the most notable impact of the pandemic
were significant losses on farm and along the supply chain
due to labor shortages and shifts in marketing channels
(ERA Economics, LLC 2020; Goodrich, Kiesel, and Bruno 2021;
Johnson 2020).
The Minnesota-Wisconsin region, which spans USDA
hardiness zones 3–5, tells a different story. The fruit and
vegetable industry in this region is relatively small with
growers representing only one percent of agricultural
acreage (USDA National Agricultural Statistics Services
2017). This is despite the fact that many of these fruits and
vegetables can be grown in the region, and in fact were
grown to a greater extent in decades past. Minnesota-
Wisconsin produce tends to remain in the region as growers
typically direct-market locally-grown fruits and vegetables
as fresh products. There are some exceptions. Vegetables
grown for processing, such as sweet corn, green peas, green
beans, and potatoes are typically frozen or canned for both
retail and institutional markets. During the first 12 months of
the pandemic, growers who relied solely on institutional
sales scrambled to pivot, looking for alternative buyers.
Thirty-four percent of Minnesota-Wisconsin fruit and vege-
table survey respondents reported losing existing customers
during the first and second half of 2020. For processors that
specialized in institutional markets, there was little room to
pivot. Alternatively, potato growers reported some insu-
lation from dramatic market shifts since they were supply-
ing fresh markets and processing markets for institutional
sale and for retail sale. This allowed them to shift sales into
the retail categories as institutional sales declined.
6 Conclusions
The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented event for
modern society and tested every facet of our modern
infrastructure with wide-reaching implications and many
lessons learned. The early phases of the pandemic provided
an opportunity to reflect on where food comes from, where it
goes, and to connect families and communities to producers.
Many found solace in preparing meals at home and many
fruit and vegetable producers, distributors, and retailers
were able to identify deficiencies and pivot quickly to ensure
that demand would be met. Many operations within the fruit
and vegetable supply chain gained a deeper understanding
of where their products were going, how they got there, and
the complexities of the broader food supply chain.
The impacts of COVID-19 on Florida’s fruit and vegetable
industries were dependent on several factors, including a
confluence of high COVID-19 spread, “shutdowns,”and peak
harvest periods as well as heavy reliance on sending prod-
ucts to institutional/fresh markets. Fresh fruit and vegetable
growers who grow perishable crops for the food-service
sector were impacted significantly during the early months
of the pandemic. However, produce sales recovered strongly
during the latter half of May and into the summer months as
14 C.D. Court et al.

produce demand shifted from food service industries to
retail grocery stores.
Fruit and vegetable producers adapted quickly to
pandemic impacts and uncertainties to continue supplying
consumers with the necessary products to sustain their
families and communities. One area of heightened concern
for every operation within the fruit and vegetable supply
chain was the potential impact of COVID-19 infections within
the workplace. During the early stages of the pandemic,
many operations implemented procedures to minimize the
risk of COVID-19 transmission and provided educational
materials to their workforce. Interviews with company
representatives attributed a low number of infections to
their rapid implementation of social distancing, masking,
and worker isolation procedures if infection was suspected.
Many operations also alluded to the adoption of an innova-
tive mindset to weather the pandemic, in some cases
implementing changes that had long been considered but
not prioritized. Likewise, there was a pattern of leveraging
relationships to continue operations. It became apparent
that many businesses’survival and success was largely due
to greater community awareness and engagement with local
food production, financial support through government
interventions, and assurances that food production would
remain an essential service.
It is only when something disappears that we realize
what we had or what we miss. COVID-19 highlighted this
adage and can serve as a moment to increase the value we
place on fruit and vegetable production within commu-
nities and how actors on both the supply and demand sides
of this system understand the dynamics outside their
limited interactions within production, packing/process-
ing, movement, or consumption of fresh fruit and vegetable
products.
Appendix A: Interview Guides
Question Bank #2: Production agriculture
Q2.1 Briefly describe your farming operation in Southwest
Florida (or other specific region) pre-COVID-19. (geographic
and open-ended)
Optional Prompts:
–What do you grow/produce?
–Who are your customers, or how do you sell your
products?
–Where are your markets or customers located?
–How many people do you directly employ on your
operation?
Q2.2 How has (have) your market(s) changed as a result of
COVID-19? (geographic and open-ended)
Optional Prompts:
–Did your operation expand or contract?
–Are you employing more or fewer people than before
the pandemic?
–Describe how your relationships with your customers
AND suppliers have changed because of the pandemic.
Q2.3 What adjustments did you make in your farming and/or
marketing in reaction to COVID-19? (open-ended)
Optional Prompt:
–Did you adopt any new innovations or form new
partnerships?
Q2.4 Have there been any regulations or other constraints
that have enabled or prevented you from making
adjustments you wanted to make within your operations
in response to COVID-19? (open-ended)
Q2.5 How do you think COVID-19 will change the future of
your business? (open-ended)
Q2.6 Describe how you managed risk before the COVID-19
pandemic (i.e., weather, market volatility). (open-ended)
Q2.7 Were you able to prepare for risks associated with the
COVID-19 pandemic? (open-ended)
Q2.8 Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed your approach to
risk management? If so, how? (open-ended)
Question Bank #3: Processing/Packing
Q3.1 Briefly describe your processing or packing operations
pre-COVID-19. (open-ended)
Optional Prompts:
–What do process or pack?
–Who are your customers, or how do you sell your
products?
–Where are your markets or customers located?
–How many people did you employ prior to the pandemic?
Q3.2 How has (have) your market(s) changed as a result of
COVID-19?
Optional Prompts:
–Did your sales or revenues increase or decrease?
–Are you employing more or fewer people than before the
pandemic?
–Describe how your relationships with your customers
AND suppliers have changed because of the pandemic.
Pandemic Produce: COVID-19 and Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries 15

Q3.3 What adjustments did you make in your operation
and/or marketing strategy in reaction to COVID-19? (open-
ended)
Optional Prompts:
–Did you adopt any new innovations or form new
partnerships?
Q3.4 Have there been any regulations or other constraints
that have enabled or prevented you from making
adjustments you wanted to make within your operations
in response to COVID-19? (open-ended)
Q3.5 How do you think COVID-19 will change the future of
your business? (open-ended)
Q3.6 Describe how you managed risk before the COVID-19
pandemic? (open-ended)
Optional Prompts:
–Think about how you anticipated actions against hurri-
canes, drought, low prices from market volatility.
Q3.7 Were you able to prepare for risks associated with the
COVID-19 pandemic?
(open-ended)
Q3.8 Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed your approach to
risk management? If so, how?
(open-ended)
Question Bank #5: Retail Distribution –local
food networks
Q5.1 Briefly describe your food retail operations in
Southwest Florida (or other specific region)
pre-COVID-19. (geographic and open-ended)
Optional Prompts:
–What do you sell?
–Who are your customers, or how do you sell your
products?
–Where are your markets or customers located?
–How many people do you directly employ on your
operation?
Q5.2 How has your market changed as a result of COVID-19?
(geographic and open-ended)
Optional Prompts:
–Did your retail operations expand or contract?
–Are you employing more or fewer people than before the
pandemic?
–Describe how your relationships with your customers
AND suppliers have changed because of the pandemic.
Q5.3 What adjustments did you make in your marketing
approach as a reaction to COVID-19? (open-ended)
Optional Prompt:
–Did you adopt any new innovations or form new
partnerships?
Q5.4 Have there been any regulations or other constraints
that have enabled or prevented you from making
adjustments you wanted to make within your operations
in response to COVID-19? (open-ended)
Q5.5 How do you think COVID-19 will change the future of
your business? (open-ended)
Q5.6 Describe how you managed risk before the COVID-19
pandemic (i.e., weather, market volatility). (open-ended)
Q5.7 Were you able to prepare for risks associated with the
COVID-19 pandemic? (open-ended)
Q5.8 Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed your approach to
risk management? If so, how? (open-ended)
Question Bank #10: Food-Related
Nongovernmental Operations (NGOs)
Q10.1 Briefly describe your non-profitpre COVID-19?
Optional Prompts:
–What communities do you serve?
–What is the structure of organization?
–How many employees?
–How many participants?
Q10.2 What area do you serve geographically? (locations)
Q10.3 How and how much has demand for your services
changed? (percentage and discussion)
Q10.4 Where have you seen increases in demand
geographically? (locations) Has this changed the way you
distribute to these areas? (open-ended)
Q10.5 How has your volunteer base changed? (percentages
and discussion)
Q10.6 Have you made changes to how and where you
procure food? If so, what are they? (open-ended)
Q10.7 What funding impacts do you anticipate as a result of
COVID-19? (percentage, open-ended)
Q10.8 Do you anticipate lasting operational changes as a
result of COVID-19? If so, what are they? (open-ended)
16 C.D. Court et al.

Q10.9 Have there been any regulations or other constraints
that have enabled or prevented you from making
adjustments you wanted to make within your operations
in response to COVID-19? (open-ended)
Q10.10 What role have partnerships played in responding to
COVID-19? Have you formed new partnerships? (open-
ended)
Q10.11 What risks has COVID-19 highlighted for your
operation? (open-ended)
Appendix B: Codes for Qualitative
Analysis of Interviews
Metadata labels for transcripts:
–Location of interview (UF/IFAS Districts/County)
–Date of Interview
–Interviewer
–Major Themes
–Question Bank
a. Sector/Question bank –for categorizing questions
asked.
i. Business Description
ii. Market Change
iii. Adjustments to COVID-19
iv. Regulation constraint
v. Future outlook
yi. Risk Perception pre, during, and post
vii. Other/added
viii. Prompt/probe
b. Impact-Evaluative statement that represents change in
business practices, approach, and effects due to direct
or indirect implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
i. Positive (the business/ individual had outcomes
that were a benefit in the duration of the COVID-19
pandemic)
ii. Negative (the business/ individual had outcomes
that were at a detriment in the duration of the
COVID-19 pandemic)
iii. None
iv. Both positive and negative
v. Observed market impact
c. Partnerships-relationships between businesses, in-
dividuals or agencies.
i. New (a partnership or relationship that was
formed in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic)
ii. Improved (an existing partnership expanded due
to the COVID-19 pandemic)
iii. Declined (an existing partnership was reduced due
to the COVID-19 pandemic)
iv. Loss
v. Change in relationship
vi. No change
d. Culture (Institutional/Business) –The ethos and
practices of a business, institution or individual that
determines approach, attitudes and common practices.
i. Changed
ii. Remained the same
e. Change Internal –Adjustments in reaction from within
the business, individual(s) or institution. This may be
change inspired, accelerated or in direct relation to the
COVID-19 pandemic or awareness brought about during
the COVID-19 pandemic.
i. Operational/process change
ii. Physical (structural)
iii. Future changes
iv. Systemic change
f. Change External –Events or circumstances outside of
the business, individual or institution that determined
shifts in practices, behavior and operations.
i. Weather
ii. Market change output
iii. Market change input
g. Technology
i. New technology adoption in operations
ii. Re-invention of already adopted technologies
iii. Remote meetings positive
iv. Remote meetings negative
v. No change
h. Risk Mitigation –Consists of actions, attitudes or per-
ceptions towards risk prior, during, and post the
COVID-19 pandemic.
i. During
ii. Post
iii. Prior
iv. Approach to risk
i. Constraints –Reduced the ability of the individual(s),
institution or business to operate and were due to the
COVID-19 pandemic or COVID-19-related decisions or
extraneous circumstantial occurrence.
i. COVID-19 related
ii. COVID-19 decisions
iii. Circumstantial
j. Ongoing Concerns
k. Employees
i. COVID-19 risk
ii. Let go
iii. Hired more
Pandemic Produce: COVID-19 and Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries 17

iv. Stayed same
l. Geography
i. Expanded reach/market
ii. Recession in reach/ market
iii. New locations
m. Legislation/Regulation –Regulations or restrictions
introduced or highlighted as a result of the COVID-19
pandemic.
i. Slowed Business
ii. Supported Business
iii. Complicated
iv. Indecisive
v. Limited
vi. Adapted
vii. Loosened
viii. Tightened
ix. No change
x. External to the COVID-19 pandemic
n. Future Outlook –Specific in relation to the time of the
interview. Post COVID-19 outlook should be addressed
with risk mitigation code.
i. Positive
ii. Negative
iii. Unclear
iv. Concerned
v. External to COVID-19
o. Implied knowledge and elaboration required
p. Business Description
Acknowledgments: Valuable assistance in the preparation
of the interview guides, recruitment of participants, and
implementation of interviews was provided by Lauren
Butler, County Extension Director and Livestock Agent II,
Okeechobee County Cooperative Extension Service, UF/IFAS;
Angela Corona, Public Health Specialist, Family Nutrition
Program, Osceola and Orange Counties, UF/IFAS; Dr. Vincent
Encomio, Florida Sea Grant Agent, Martin and St. Lucie
Counties, UF/IFAS; Liz Felter, Regional Specialized Extension
Agent in central Florida, UF/IFAS; Carlita Fiestas-Nunez,
Food Systems Specialist, Family Nutrition Program, UF/IFAS;
Yvette Goodiel, Sustainability and Commercial Horticulture
Agent, Martin County, UF/IFAS; Jennifer Hagen, Family
Consumer Sciences Agent, UF/IFAS Extension Lee County;
Brittany Hall-Scharf, Marine Agent, UF/IFAS Extension and
the Florida Sea Grant Program; Ron Hamel, Agribusiness
Consultant, Center for Agribusiness, Lutgert College of
Business, FGCU; Lisa Hickey, Sustainable Agriculture and
Food Systems Extension Agent, UF/IFAS Extension Manatee
County; Molly Jameson, Sustainable Agriculture and Com-
munity Food Systems Agent, UF/IFAS Extension Leon
County; Elias T. Kirche, Department of Information Systems
Operations Management, Florida Gulf Coast University;
Colleen Larson, Regional Dairy Agent, Okeechobee, High-
lands, DeSoto, and Hardee Counties, UF/IFAS; Gene McAvoy,
Associate Director for Stakeholder Relations, Southwest
Florida Research and Education Center, UF/IFAS; Jeannie
Necessary, Food Systems Specialist, Family Nutrition Pro-
gram, UF/IFAS; Chris Prevatt, State Specialized Extension
Agent II –Beef Cattle and Forage Enterprise Budgeting and
Marketing, Range Cattle Research and Education Center,
UF/IFAS; Jessica Ryals, Agriculture and Sustainable Food
Systems Agent, Collier County, UF/IFAS; Stuart Van Auken,
Eminent Scholar, Marketing, Lutgert College of Business,
FGCU; Andrea Moron Vasquez, Program Manager, Family
Nutrition Program, Lee County, UF/IFAS; and Kelly Wilson,
Food Systems Specialist, Family Nutrition Program, Lee
County, UF/IFAS. Valuable assistance with the preparation
of the interview data and this article was also provided by
Kelsey McDaid, Research Coordinator, Food and Resource
Economics Department, UF/IFAS.
Research funding: This work is in part supported by the
Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, grant no. 2020-
68006-33037, from the USDA National Institute of Food and
Agriculture.
References
Ahmed, J. U., S. Akter, and K. A. Majumder. 2021. “Impact of COVID-19 on
Agricultural Production and Distribution in South Asia.”World Food
Policy 7 (2): 168–82.
Aiyar, A., and P. Pingali. 2020. “Pandemics and Food Systems –Towards a
Proactive Food Safety Approach to Disease Prevention Management.”
Food Security 12 (4): 749–56.
Alam, G. M. M., and M. N. Khatun. 2021. “Impact of COVID-19 on Vegetable
Supply Chain and Food Security: Empirical Evidence from
Bangladesh.”PLoS One 16 (3): e0248120.
Ali, Z., R. Green, R. B. Zougmor´
e, S. Mkuhlani, A. Palazzo, A. M. Prentice,
A. Haines, A. D. Dangour, and P. F. D. Scheelbeek. 2020. “Long-Term
Impact of West African Food System Responses to COVID-19.”Nature
Food 1 (12): 768–70.
Baker, L. M., H. H. Peterson, and C. R. Boyer. 2022. “Changes in Consumer
Purchasing Behavior of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables During the
COVID-19 Pandemic.”HortScience 57 (9): S242–3.
Campbell, C., and G. McAvoy. 2020. “Florida Fruit and Vegetable Growers’
Adaptation and Response to COVID-19.”Journal of Agriculture, Food
Systems, and Community Development 9 (4): 165–9.
Campbell, B. L., A. L. Rihn, and J. H. Campbell. 2021. “Impact of the
Coronavirus Pandemic on Plant Purchasing in Southeastern United
States.”Agribusiness 37 (1): 160–70.
Citrus World, Inc. 2022. Cooperative Information. Lake Wales: Citrus World
Inc. Also available at https://citrusworldinc.com/cooperative-
information/ (accessed September 12, 2022).
18 C.D. Court et al.

Court, C. D., A. Hodges, and M. Lollar. 2020. Harmonizing the Assessment of
the Impacts of Natural Disasters to Florida Agriculture. Gainesville:
UF/IFAS. Also available at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FE1075?
msclkid=d86b1bccd16511ecb69a7a18d7d7e56a.
Court, C. D., J. Ferreira, and J. Cruz. 2021. Economic Contributions of the Florida
Citrus Industry, 2019–2020. Gainesville: UF/IFAS Economic Impact
Analysis Program. Also available at https://fred.ifas.ufl.edu/PDF/
economic-impact-analysis/
FRE-EconomicContributionsFLCitrusReport2019-20FINAL.pdf.
Court, C. D., J. P. Ferreira, G. J. D. Hewings, and M. L. Lahr. 2021. “Accounting
for Global Value Chains: Rising Global Inequality in the Wake of
COVID-19?”International Review of Applied Economics 35 (6): 813–31.
Creswell, J. W., and V. L. P. Clark. 2017. Designing & Conducting Mixed Methods
Research, Vol. 1. Los Angeles: Sage Publishing.
Cutter, S. L. 2018. “Compound, Cascading, or Complex Disasters: What’sina
Name?”Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 60
(6): 16–25.
Deaton, B. J., and B. J. Deaton. 2020. “Food Security and Canada’s
Agricultural System Challenged by COVID-19.”Canadian Journal of
Agricultural Economics 68 (2): 143–9.
Department of Homeland Security 2020. Temporary Changes to
Requirements Affecting H-2A Nonimmigrants Due to the COVID-19
National Emergency: Partial Extension of Certain Flexibilities.
Washington: Homeland Security Department. Also available at
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/20/2020-
18283/temporary-changes-to-requirements-affecting-h-2a-
nonimmigrants-due-to-the-covid-19-national.
Dittmar, P., J. Freeman, M. Paret, and H. Smith. 2020. 2021–2022 Vegetable
Production Handbook. Gainesville: UF/IFAS. Also available at https://
journals.flvc.org/edis/issue/view/5959.
Dundee Citrus Growers Association. 2022. Our Story. Dundee: Dundee Citrus
Growers Association. http://dun-d.com/about-dundee/ (accessed
September 12, 2022).
ERA Economics, LLC. 2020. Economic Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on
California Agriculture. Also available at https://www.cfbf.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/06/COVID19_AgImpacts.pdf.
FAO. 2020. Impact of COVID-19 on Agriculture, Food Systems and Rural
Livelihoods in Eastern Africa.
Faus, J., and N. Hunt. 2021. Coronavirus Costs Climb as Europe’sFarmersSeek
Seasonal Workers. New York: Reuters. Also available at https://www.
reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-produce/coronavirus-costs-
climb-as-europes-farmers-seek-seasonal-workers-idUSKBN2BN2AR.
Ferreira, J. P., P. Ramos, E. Barata, C. D. Court, and L. Cruz. 2021. “The Impact
of COVID-19 on Global Value Chains: Disruption in Nonessential Goods
Production.”Regional Science Policy & Practice 13 (S1): 32–54.
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. 2022a. State
Farmers Markets. Tallahassee. https://www.fdacs.gov/Agriculture-
Industry/State-Farmers-Markets (accessed September 10, 2022).
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. 2022b. Florida
Citrus Statistics 2020–2021. Tallahassee. https://www.nass.usda.gov/
Statistics_by_State/Florida/Publications/Citrus/Citrus_Statistics/2020-
21/fcs2021b.pdf (accessed September 10, 2022).
Florida Department of Citrus (FDOC). 2020. Nielson RetailSales. Annual Topline
Report on Retail Sales for Florida Citrus Juice, 2019–20 Season, Dec. 2020.
Bartow. Also available at https://www.floridacitrus.org/grower/florida-
department-of-citrus/economic-market-resources/market-reports/.
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). 2020. Impact of COVID-19 on
Kenya’s Food Systems: A Situational Report. Also available at
https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000119380/download/.
Goodman, L. A. 2011. “Comment: On Respondent-Driven Sampling and
Snowball Sampling in Hard-to-Reach Populations and Snowball
Sampling Not in Hard-to-Reach Populations.”Sociological Methodology
41 (1): 347–53.
Goodrich, B., K. Kiesel, and E. Bruno. 2021. “Differential Impacts of the
COVID-19 Pandemic on California’s Produce and Nut Industries.”
Western Economics Forum 19 (1): 58–74.
Gu, H., and C. Wang. 2020. “Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Vegetable
Production and Countermeasures from an Agricultural Insurance
Perspective.”Journal of Integrative Agriculture 19 (12): 2866–76.
Harris, J., L. Depenbusch, A. A. Pal, R. M. Nair, and S. Ramasamy. 2020. “Food
System Disruption: Initial Livelihood and Dietary Effects of COVID-19
on Vegetable Producers in India.”Food Security 12 (4): 841–51.
Heng, Y., M. Zansler, and L. House. 2020. Orange Juice Consumers’Response
to the COVID-19 Pandemic. EDIS Document FE1082. Gainesville: UF/IFAS,
Food Resource Economics. Also available at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/
publication/FE1082.
Hobbs, J. E. 2020. “Food Supply Chains During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue Canadienne
d’agroeconomie 68 (2): 171–6.
Hoppe, R. A., J. M. Macdonald, and P. Korb. 2010. Small Farms in the United
States Persistence Under Pressure, EIB-63. Washington: United States
Dept. of Agriculture Economic Research Service, Economic
Information Bulletin. 63: i–32. Also available at https://www.ers.usda.
gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=44463.
Huff, A. G., E. B. Walter, S. K. Nicholas, and A. M. Joseph. 2015. “How Resilient
is the United States’Food System to Pandemics?”Journal of
Environmental Studies and Sciences 5 (3): 337.
IHS Markit. 2020. Coronavirus Triggers Acute Farm Labour Shortages in
Europe. London: S&P Global. Also available at https://ihsmarkit.com/
research-analysis/article-coronavirus-triggers-acute-farm-labour-
shortages-europe.html.
Johns Hopkins University and Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center 2022.
Impact of Opening and Closing Decisions by State: A Look at How Social
Distancing Measures May Have Influenced Trends in COVID-19 Cases and
Deaths. Baltimore: JHU Coronavirus Resource Center. Also available at
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/state-timeline/new-confirmed-
cases/florida/27 (accessed July 1, 2022).
Johnson, R. 2020. COVID-19: Supply Chain Disruptions in the US Fruit and
Vegetable Industry: In Brief. Washington: Homeland Security Digital
Library. Also available at https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&
did=838233.
Ker, A. P., and R. Cardwell. 2020. “Introduction to the Special Issue on
COVID-19 and the Canadian Agriculture and Food Sectors: Thoughts
from the Pandemic Onset.”Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/
Revue Canadienne d’agroeconomie 68 (2): 139–42.
Kniffin, K. M., J. Narayanan, F. Anseel, J. Antonakis, S. P. Ashford,
A. B. Bakker, and P. Bamberger. 2021. “COVID-19 and the Workplace:
Implications, Issues, and Insights for Future Research and Action.”The
American Psychologist 76 (1): 63–77.
Lee, D. 2020. COVID-19 Pandemic: Update on Canadian Immigration.
Vancouver: (blog) Alexander Holburn Beaudin +Lang LLP. Also
available at https://www.ahbl.ca/blog-covid-19-pandemic-update-on-
canadian-immigration-2/.
Lipman Family Farms. 2022. We’re Local Everywhere. Immokalee: Lipman
Family Farms. https://www.lipmanfamilyfarms.com/find-us/
(accessed September 12, 2022).
Maria del Rio-Chanona, R., P. Mealy, A. Pichler, F. Lafond, and J. D. Farmer.
2020. “Supply and Demand Shocks in the COVID-19 Pandemic: An
Pandemic Produce: COVID-19 and Florida’s Fruit and Vegetable Industries 19

Industry and Occupation Perspective.”Oxford Review of Economic
Policy 36: S94–137.
Nowell, L. S., J. M. Norris, D. E. White, and N. J. Moules. 2017. “Thematic
Analysis: Striving to Meet the Trustworthiness Criteria.”International
Journal of Qualitative Methods 16 (1). https://doi.org/10.1177/
1609406917733847.
OECD. 2020. Preliminary Report: Evaluation of the Impact of the Coronavirus
(COVID-19) on Fruit and Vegetables Trade.1–14. Also available at https://
www.oecd.org/agriculture/fruit-vegetables/oecd-covid-19-impact-
on-fruit-and-vegetables-trade.pdf.
Outerbridge,D.,C.D.Court,L.Birou,C.Campbell,L.Felter,S.Galindo,
J. Hagen, B. Hall-Scharf, L. Hickey, M. Jameson, E. Kirche,
A. Magnier, and F. Roka. 2022. “Change and Innovation Within
Florida’s Food System in Response to COVID-19.”In Economies,
Institutions, and Territories: Dissecting Nexuses in A Changing World,
edited by L. Storti, G. Urso, and N. Reid. Milton Park: Taylor and
Francis Ltd.
Richards, T. J., B. Rickard, C. J. T. Richards, and W. P. Carey. 2020. “COVID-19
Impact on Fruit and Vegetable Markets.”Canadian Journal of
Agricultural Economics/Revue Canadienne d’agroeconomie 68 (2):
189–94.
Romaguera, K. 2020a. UF Surveys to Identify Impact of Pandemic on Florida’s
Agriculture and Marine Industries. Gainesville: UF/IFAS Blog. Also
available at https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/news/2020/04/16/ag-marine-
impact-covid-19/.
Romaguera, K. 2020b. Preliminary Reports in COVID-19 Impact Survey Show
Effects Vary by Industry. Gainesville: UF/IFAS Blog. Also available at
https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/news/2020/05/04/preliminary-reports-in-
covid-19-impact-survey-show-effects-vary-by-industry/.
Saldanña, J., and M. Omasta. 2022. Qualitative Research: Analyzing Life, 2nd
ed. Los Angeles: Sage Publishing.
Spicer, A. 2020. “Organizational Culture and COVID-19.”Journal of
Management Studies 57 (8): 1737–40.
Szelewa, D., and M. Polakowski. 2022. “European Solidarity and ‘Free
Movement of Labour’During the Pandemic: Exposing the
Contradictions Amid East–West Migration.”Comparative European
Politics 20 (2): 238–56.
The Florida Tomato Committee. 2013. Tomato 101. Maitland: Florida Tomato
Committee. https://www.floridatomatoes.org/wp-content/uploads/
2013/01/Tomato_1011.pdf (accessed September 10, 2022).
UF/IFAS. 2021. Florida’s Agriculture and Food System Fast Facts 2021.
Gainesville: UF/IFAS. Also available at https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/
ifascomm/2021/04/06/floridas-agriculture-and-food-system-fast-
facts-booklet/.
United States Department of Agriculture –Farm Service Agency. 2020. USDA
Announces Details of Direct Assistance to Farmers Through the
Coronavirus Food Assistance Program. Washington: United States
Department of Agriculture –Farm Service Agency. Also available at
https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2020/05/19/usda-
announces-details-direct-assistance-farmers-through.
USDA NationalAgricultural Statistics Services.2017. 2017 Census of Agriculture.
Washington: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Also
available at https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/
index.php.
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Services. 2022. 2021 State Agriculture
Overview for Florida. Washington: USDA National Agricultural Statistics
Service. Also available at https://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick_Stats/Ag_
Overview/stateOverview.php?state=FLORIDA.
Weersink, A., M. von Massow, N. Bannon, J. Ifft, J. Maples, K. McEwan,
M. G. S. McKendree, C. Nicholson, A. Novakovic, A. Rangarajan,
T. Richards, B. Rickard, J. Rude, M. Schipanski, G. Schnitkey, L. Schulz,
D. Schuurman, K. Schwartzkopf-Genswein, M. Stephenson,
J. Thompson, and K. Wood. 2021. “COVID-19 and the Agri-Food System
in the United States and Canada.”Agricultural Systems 188: 103039.
Workie, E., J. Mackolil, J. Nyika, and S. Ramadas. 2020. “Deciphering the
Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Food Security, Agriculture, and
Livelihoods: A Review of the Evidence from Developing Countries.”
Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 2: 100014.
Yegbemey, R. N., C. M. K. Ahihou, I. Olorunnipa, M. Benali, V. Afari-Sefa, and
P. Schreinemachers. 2021. “COVID-19 Effects and Resilience
of VegetableFarmers in North-WesternNigeria.”Agronomy 11 (9):1808.
Yuen, K. F., X. Wang, F. Ma, and K. X. Li. 2020. “The Psychological Causes of
Panic Buying Following a Health Crisis.”International Journal of
Environmental Research and Public Health 17 (10): 3513.
20 C.D. Court et al.