Blueberries, green beans, yellow squash, red onions, purple cabbage, oranges. At markets across Florida, colorful produce signals freshness and nutrition and attracts consumers. 

Here, as in other states, food’s journey from farm to table begins by removing evidence of the farm. Namely: scrubbing away the soil that forms the foundation of our food system. 

And as climate change intensifies and weather events become more extreme, this foundation is increasingly under stress.

In few places is this more visible than the Sunshine State, where there are 44,000 farms (including nurseries and properties raising animals, vegetables, and citrus and other fruit) on 9.7 million acres, about 30 percent of the state’s total land.

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2 billion, following two storms and record-low temperatures. That’s on top of drought conditions extending across more than 95 percent of the state at the time and increased wildfire activity. Conditions peaked in May, when 82 percent of Florida was in the two most severe drought category conditions.

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