Florida Agricultural Research Articles

Common Arthropod Pests in Blackberries and Pomegranates in Florida

Blackberry and pomegranate are growing in importance as alternative crops in Florida. In the past decade, blackberry production in Florida increased from 64 acres in 2007 to 173 acres in 2017. The many health benefits acquired from these fruits make them good alternative options for growers in Florida to diversify their operations by planting some new and less traditional crops, providing them a niche in the Florida agriculture market. The intended audience of this publication includes blackberry and pomegranate growers in Florida as well as Extension agents providing expert recommendations to both these industries. The purpose of this publication is to share information derived from a one-year field survey on commonly encountered pests.

Curricular Resource Use and Pedagogical Design Capacity of Florida Agricultural Education Teachers

A nationwide standardized curricular resource does not exist for school-based agricultural education. Teachers rely on several resources to develop instruction for students. Pedagogical Design Capacity (PDC) examines teachers’ capacity to perceive and mobilize existing resources to develop instructional episodes. The purpose of the study was to determine the curricular resources used by Florida school-based agriculture education teachers and examine the PDC of Florida teachers for the resources they use. A census of Florida agriculture teachers was employed using an online instrument developed by the researchers adapted from previous studies. A response rate of 49.6% (n = 248) was obtained. The instrument was developed to determine the resources used by Florida teachers and examine their PDC with each resource. Respondents indicated using a mean of 8.6 resources with varying degrees of frequency. Various patterns of curricular use for the resources were found. Correlations between the use of specific resources was not found above a moderate level. Florida agriculture teachers rely on a variety of resources to develop instruction. These findings point to the potential for the continued development of various types of resources including resources that generate ideas for teachers, resources that provide lesson structure, as well as scripted lesson plans. We recommend future studies to examine the design features of specific curricular resources that can inform the development of future resources. We also encourage instruction to help inservice and preservice teachers understand and develop their PDC.

Agriculture and downstream ecosystems in Florida: an analysis of media discourse.

Environmental media discourse analysis allows researchers to explore thematic patterns in media coverage of environmental issues through qualitative observations and quantitative coding. In this paper, we review newspaper media coverage in Florida pertaining to the connections between agriculture, other non-point pollution sources, and downstream ecosystem health. We analyzed 930 articles from 2007 through 2019 to determine common patterns in how these issues are covered by Florida media, including patterns in the causes of environmental problems, potential solutions, and stakeholders mentioned. Findings suggest that water quality problems are often framed as unpredictable or episodic rather than chronic, and as requiring (and only potentially being remediated by) state-level centralized technological or infrastructural solutions. Stakeholder relationships are framed as adversarial, with environmentalists and the agricultural sector as opponents. This case study highlights key power dynamics, barriers, and opportunities for better managing and communicating about agricultural land use practices and associated downstream environmental impacts.

Commercial Urban Agriculture in Florida: Needs, Opportunities, and Barriers

Florida, like much of the southeastern United States, is rapidly urbanizing. With this urbanization, there is an increasing interest in commercial urban agriculture (CUA) as an important sector for agriculture in the state. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture does not report data about CUA operations, thus limiting the knowledge about the status of CUA operations regarding basic features such as farm size, operator demographics, production systems, sources of revenue, barriers to business operations and profitability, and future opportunities for development. Because previous research has found differences in urban farmers’ demographics and their perceptions of barriers and opportunities, the purpose of this research was to characterize CUA operations in Florida and to understand the urban farmers’ perceptions of the primary needs, barriers, and opportunities for developing CUA, as well as CUA operators’ informational needs and preferred informational formats. We performed a cluster analysis to identify salient groups of urban growers in Florida to identify subgroups based on shared characteristics that revealed three distinct groups of urban farmers with differing perceptions of barriers, opportunities, informational needs, and preferred informational formats.

Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Environmental and Conservation Regulations

This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws, which was designed to provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal Florida laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farm land owners have under Florida laws. Many readers may value this handbook because it informs them about these rights and responsibilities, and it provides them with good contacts for more detailed information. However, the reader should be aware that because the laws, administrative rulings, and court decisions on which this handbook is based are subject to constant revision, portions of this handbook could become outdated at any time. Many details of cited laws are also left out due to space limitations. FE118/FE118: Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Environmental and Conservation Regulations (ufl.edu)

Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Animal Husbandry

This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws, which was designed to provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal Florida laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farm land owners have under Florida laws. Many readers may value this handbook because it informs them about these rights and responsibilities, and it provides them with good contacts for more detailed information. However, the reader should be aware that because the laws, administrative rulings, and court decisions on which this handbook is based are subject to constant revision, portions of this handbook could become outdated at any time. Many details of cited laws are also left out due to space limitations. FE115/FE115: Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Animal Husbandry (ufl.edu)

Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Taxation and Property Rights Related to Agricultural Lands

This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws, which was designed to provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal Florida laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farm land owners have under Florida laws. Many readers may value this handbook because it informs them about these rights and responsibilities, and it provides them with good contacts for more detailed information. However, the reader should be aware that because the laws, administrative rulings, and court decisions on which this handbook is based are subject to constant revision, portions of this handbook could become outdated at any time. Many details of cited laws are also left out due to space limitations. FE119/FE119: Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Taxation and Property Rights Related to Agricultural Lands (ufl.edu)

Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Related Non-Crop or Product Agricultural Topics

This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws, which was designed to provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal Florida laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farm land owners have under Florida laws. Many readers may value this handbook because it informs them about these rights and responsibilities, and it provides them with good contacts for more detailed information. However, the reader should be aware that because the laws, administrative rulings, and court decisions on which this handbook is based are subject to constant revision, portions of this handbook could become outdated at any time. Many details of cited laws are also left out due to space limitations. FE117/FE117: Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Related Non-Crop or Product Agricultural Topics (ufl.edu)

Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Index

This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws, which was designed to provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal Florida laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farm land owners have under Florida laws. Many readers may value this handbook because it informs them about these rights and responsibilities, and it provides them with good contacts for more detailed information. However, the reader should be aware that because the laws, administrative rulings, and court decisions on which this handbook is based are subject to constant revision, portions of this handbook could become outdated at any time. Many details of cited laws are also left out due to space limitations. Published by the UF Department of Food and Resource Economics, May 2022. FE122/FE122: Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Index (ufl.edu)

Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: General Agriculture-Related Laws

This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws, which was designed to provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal Florida laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farm land owners have under Florida laws. Many readers may value this handbook because it informs them about these rights and responsibilities, and it provides them with good contacts for more detailed information. However, the reader should be aware that because the laws, administrative rulings, and court decisions on which this handbook is based are subject to constant revision, portions of this handbook could become outdated at any time. Many details of cited laws are also left out due to space limitations. FE114/FE114: Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: General Agriculture-Related Laws (ufl.edu)

Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Table of Contents

This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws, which was designed to provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal Florida laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farm land owners have under Florida laws. Many readers may value this handbook because it informs them about these rights and responsibilities, and it provides them with good contacts for more detailed information. However, the reader should be aware that because the laws, administrative rulings, and court decisions on which this handbook is based are subject to constant revision, portions of this handbook could become outdated at any time. Many details of cited laws are also left out due to space limitations. FE113/FE113: Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Table of Contents (ufl.edu)

Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws: Crops and Products

This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Agricultural Laws, which was designed to provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal Florida laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farm land owners have under Florida laws. Many readers may value this handbook because it informs them about these rights and responsibilities, and it provides them with good contacts for more detailed information. However, the reader should be aware that because the laws, administrative rulings, and court decisions on which this handbook is based are subject to constant revision, portions of this handbook could become outdated at any time. Many details of cited laws are also left out due to space limitations.

Judge rules against former student‐athlete

Case name: Burks, et al. v. Board of Trustees of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, No. 4:19cv275 (N.D. Fla. 12/04/20).

Personal resilience of first-year, alternatively certified agriscience teachers

A wide range of challenges continues to exist in delivering school-based agricultural education (SBAE) programs. Among the most pressing challenges are the recruitment and retention of high-quality agriculture teachers (Guffey & Young, 2020). Teacher educators and researchers in SBAE are tasked with meeting the nationwide demand for teachers, while also better understanding the status of alternatively certified agriculture teachers (Foster et al., 2020). This study explored the challenges, coping strategies, and personal resilience of first-year agriscience teachers in Florida who held a temporary teaching certificate. Using a qualitative, phenomenological approach, seven alternatively certified Florida agriculture teachers were interviewed. The personal resilience framework developed by Hoopes (2017) guided this study, as researchers examined alternatively certified teachers’ experiences and responses to challenges in their teaching. Emergent themes included prior plans to teach, overwhelming expectations, supportive networks, aspects of resilience, and feelings of motivation and inspiration. This study highlights the need for proactive professional development and support systems for first-year, alternatively certified agriculture teachers.

Department Profile: The Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering

The Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering (CBE) at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, founded in 1984 through a unique collaboration between two state universities, Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University (FAMU) and Florida State University (FSU), currently educates 532 undergraduate and 60 graduate students with 17 tenured/tenure track faculty and 4 teaching faculty members.  Combining the strengths of FAMU—the top rated public Historically Black College and University (HBCU) according to the 2021 college rankings of the US News & World Report, and FSU—a Carnegie Classified R1: Very High Research Activity university, the department and college serve a diverse population of students that reflects the composition of the United States. Students enroll at one of the two universities (their home institution), where they complete their pre-requisite and non-engineering courses. In the sophomore year, all students begin taking engineering courses together at the joint college campus with faculty from both institutions. Students graduate with degrees from their home institution. Faculty members teach and supervise students in research from both institutions in common classes and laboratories, thus providing all students with experience working in diverse groups and access to state-of-the-art research opportunities.  The department has produced outstanding students who have gone on to be leaders in industry and academia.  CBE offers two undergraduate degrees: chemical engineering (ChE) and biomedical engineering (BME). Within these degrees are five majors: chemical engineering, chemical-materials engineering, biomedical (cell and bioprocess engineering), biomedical (biomaterials and biopolymers), and biomedical(imaging and signals processing). Master of Science and Doctorate degrees and a 5-year BS-MS degree are offered in both chemical and biomedical engineering.  Faculty research spans both biomedical and chemical engineering with emphasis on  polymeric materials, biomaterials, inorganic materials, complex fluids and rheology, cell/tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. CBE has made major advances in the education of a diverse population of students while conducting research and educational efforts that span and connect the two disciplines at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Examining Communication Between Florida Agriculture and Natural Resource Organizations’ Leaders and Membership to Foster Policy Engagement. 

The agricultural sector has been influenced significantly by agriculture and natural resources (ANR) policies voted in by elected officials. Many agricultural organizations and their members have sought to provide a ‘voice’ for the ANR industry and communicate with policymakers about emerging issues. It is necessary that such organizations and members be able to use that voice effectively. This study was conducted to examine the communication preferences of Florida agricultural organization members and factors that may encourage them to contact elected officials about an ANR policy. Respondents in this study least preferred to be contacted by their organization(s) via phone call or text message. They also identified local Extension offices and the university as the most trustworthy sources of communication regarding ANR policy. When contacting members to spur involvement in ANR policy decisions, organizational leaders should use a variety of communication mediums, including email magazines and printed newsletters and magazines, to promote engagement in ANR policy discussions. Future research is needed to examine other factors that may influence agriculture organization members’ communication with elected officials, as well as the types of messaging strategies organizational leaders can use to further members’ engagement in ANR policy decisions.

Identifying important skills and competencies needed for new Florida agriculture extension agents

The onboarding needs of Extension agents is a topic continuously discussed and researched, yet overwhelmed agents persist, suggesting that there is still a missing link. We undertook a study to determine the competency training needs of newly hired agricultural agents in Florida. Two assessments were performed. First, we asked University of Florida’s County Extension agents and Directors in Agriculture, Horticulture and Natural Resources to identify main agriculture skills and competencies for new Extension. Second, we then classified those competencies into main domains and asked the same cohort to rank the competencies within each domain, in order of most important to least important. Data were collected via an online surveys, with 65% and 51% response rates, respectively. Agents needed training in specific agricultural competencies related to every-day work activities such as soil sampling, diagnostic skills, educational resource utilization, and relationship building. Although we assume that, based on job requirements, newly hired agents will enter Extension with such knowledge, results suggest an agriculture specific training is needed to meet the onboarding needs of new agents. Our study identified the priority needs for developing an onboarding program that establishes a level of standard knowledge. Those findings will serve to enhance onboarding training for new Extension professionals.

Growing Grassroots: Examining Policy Perceptions and Engagement Among Members of Florida Agricultural Organizations

Agriculture organization (AO) members are key stakeholders within the agriculture and natural resources (ANR) sector, and their engagement in policy decisions can help direct future policy formulation and implementation. Such policies and regulations are often determined by and voted upon by elected officials, and, therefore, the decisions made by those officials have become key influencers of the functionality and future direction of agricultural operations. This study was conducted to examine the impact of AO members’ perceptions, abilities, and prior efforts on their likeliness of contacting an elected official and engaging in ANR policy. AO members in this study who had greater confidence in their abilities to engage in ANR policy and had previously contacted an elected official were more likely to contact an elected official about a future policy. AO members who had more favorable beliefs about how elected officials prepare to vote, however, were less likely to engage in ANR policy by contacting an elected official. Future practice should include training and educational opportunities to enhance AO members’ perceptions of their ability to engage with their elected officials and influence ANR policy decisions. Future research should be conducted to gain a better understanding of the challenges faced by AO members when contacting elected officials and engaging in ANR policy.

Importance of Insect Pollinators for Florida Agriculture: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Insect pollinators contribute significantly to global food production impacting both crop yields and quality, but the dependence of specific crops on insect pollinators can vary across production regions and cultivars. The state of Florida has a unique agroecosystem that supports temperate and tropical fruits, vegetables, and nuts, and these specialty crops likely have a high dependence on pollinators. We conducted a systematic review to quantify the role of insect pollinators for Florida agriculture, and to identify crops and cultivars for which recent research on pollination is lacking. For all crops, we determined the average yield losses incurred without insect pollination (“pollinator contribution value”) by synthesizing previously reported values. We found that insect pollinators are required or beneficial for 47 different crops in Florida, or 43% of all plant crop species grown in the state. Major crops in the state with complete to high dependence on insect pollinators include blueberries, mangoes, melons, squashes, and tangelos; for these crops, insect pollinators contribute 75 to 100% of crop productivity. Other major crops in Florida that are moderately to highly dependent on pollinators include avocadoes, cucumbers, field tomatoes, grapefruits, green beans, oranges (select cultivars), peppers, southern peas, and strawberries, with pollinator contributions ranging from 30 to 74%. The contribution of insect pollinators exceeds $50 million per crop per yr in Florida for 7 of its most valuable crops. Using production data at the county level, we found that pollinators contribute to agriculture in almost all Florida counties. Our review identified a number of crops for which little information on pollination requirements exists, especially for modern cultivars. We discuss gaps in our knowledge of crop pollination requirements and recommendations for future research. Estimates of pollinator contributions are invaluable for farm management and policy decisions around pollinator conservation.

Judge rules against former student‐athlete

Case name: Burks, et al. v. Board of Trustees of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, No. 4:19cv275 (N.D. Fla. 12/04/20).