Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson believes in the future of Florida citrus.
Simpson, a former Florida Senate president and who is running for another term as agriculture commissioner, said the state has seen success in its citrus replanting program.
“It’s showing a lot of promise. We'll know in three years if it's as good as we think it is,” he told the News Service of Florida.
Simpson also shared the latest on Florida’s drought, what he thinks the state should do about data centers, and what he would like to accomplish if he’s reelected for another four years.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Florida has seen some really big changes in some of its traditional industries, particularly citrus. So what industries do you think have the greatest potential to drive Florida's agricultural economy in the next decade? What do you think is the next big crop?
SIMPSON: It's not the next big crop. I think it's the continuation and getting stabilized on the crops that we currently grow, and I'll give you some examples. In the citrus industry, in the last three years, we put over $300 million replanting, what we call the CRAFT program, which is a program for farmers where we help purchase the tree that they plant. They have to share all their data with us as part of the program. I know that we've had a great success with a program called the CUPS program, which stands for citrus under protective screen, and we've got about 3,000 acres of that product planted today. They're growing about three times as much fruit as you could in traditional groves. It’s showing a lot of promise. We'll know in three years if it's as good as we think it is.
In the wintertime every year, we're the breadbasket for the country in the winter. We produce about 75 percent to 80 percent of all the fresh vegetables sold on the eastern seaboard of the United States every winter. With our 300 different commodities that we have, you're going to continue to see those expand as we go forward.
Q: What is your position on large-scale data centers needed to power the burgeoning artificial intelligence technology?
SIMPSON: Nobody cares for them or likes them, and I think some of that is through misinformation. We have a lot of foreign enemies in this world that are promoting that misinformation. It's not something as the commissioner of agriculture I really have a lot to do with, I'm not a legislator any longer. My general opinion is there are four things that we have to make sure happen if they're going to build one here. No. 1, these centers should have to be put in industrial zoned property. They should not be able to take up any farmland, and they should not take up other commercial lands that are in our communities. They should be put in industrial parks, which is where I believe they belong. No. 2, they should not be able to use any fresh water at all, zero fresh water. They should have to put in the infrastructure to use reclaimed water. No. 3., they should have to generate 100 percent of their own electricity, and any excess electricity that they produce over and above their demands should be sold at a wholesale rate onto the grid, which would then help lower cost to our consumers. And No. 4., I would say from a state level is that the Legislature should leave it in the hands of local governments to make those decisions, if they want to have them in those conditions.
Q: What kind of damage did the drought do to Florida's agriculture this year?
SIMPSON: We still have parts of the state that are in drought conditions, many of them in drought. There are only a few areas that are in severe drought, so we've been blessed with some rain, and in some areas, we've gotten some pretty good amounts of rain, a little above average. I believe in most of Florida, we still are 10 inches to 12 inches below what we need to get out of drought conditions. We know that there's a Super El Niño, so I believe we're going to have a wetter winter than normal. That certainly would put us back in good shape going into next year.
Q: If you are reelected, what would you like to accomplish in your second term that you haven't done yet?
SIMPSON: I think that a lot of what we would like to accomplish is a continuation of what we've been doing. When I was senate president, I championed the wildlife corridor being put in the state statute. I’m very proud of that. As I was leaving the Senate, I put $300 million in the budget, for the rural and family lands program, and then the Legislature gave me an additional $800 million in my first four years as commissioner of agriculture. We need to save the wildlife corridor, but we need to save agriculture in the state using rural and family lands, where we buy development rights from farmers. We're accomplishing both things in the most affordable way, and we're doing it with the taxpayer in mind. For the first time in 60 years, we started building in Tallahassee a substantial building for the Florida Department of Agriculture, 250,000 square feet, and we should finish that by mid 2028 at the latest. We're going to have all of our teammates from the greater Tallahassee, Leon County area, will be housed at that building. Finishing that building up and getting those employees moved into that building is going make us much more efficient for our consumers, it's going to make us much more efficient as a division, and it's going to save the taxpayer a minimum of $70 million over the next 30 years. We're going to get a surplus of 1930s and ‘40s buildings, and we're going to get rid of a lot of leases.
Q: What's something you could do to make a meaningful difference in the cost of food for Florida families right now?
SIMPSON: Last year, we started a program called Farmers Feeding Florida. In the first year, we received a $28 million appropriation. Of that $28 million we distributed 58 million pounds of food. We're taking food that would normally go to waste or wouldn't be packaged, but would be poured out, and we're able to buy it at cost from the farmer, which is helpful to the farmer to have that product sold. Then what we do with that food is we distribute it through our food banks in the state of Florida. We believe this year with the $35 million appropriation that we got, we hope to do north of 80 million pounds of food. For example, if you are a dairy farmer in the state of Florida during the school year and you're supplying milk to the K-12 system there are four months of the year that there is no school for the kids. During those four months we can step in and buy that milk and package it, and distribute it through our food banks at no cost to the people that are most in need. What I would say about the rest of the affordability issue, the more rural and family lands we do, the more affordable our land will be for farmers to build a farm. The cost share that we do, the best management practices, we are showing our farmers how to be more efficient, how to use less fertilization, so we're saving them money, which turns into savings for our constituents.