{"id":3166,"date":"2012-09-11T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T09:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ncis.staging.wpengine.com\/?p=3166"},"modified":"2012-09-11T09:00:08","modified_gmt":"2012-09-11T09:00:08","slug":"crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"CROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Mike Garavaglia, Vero Beach, Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida accounts for roughly 70 percent of the U.S. annual production of citrus, of which the vast majority goes into processing, mostly for orange juice. Citrus is big business in the Sunshine State, and Mike Garavaglia is one of Florida\u2019s many citrus growers who make their living putting fresh citrus on the tables of America\u2019s families.<\/p>\n

Mike and his family own and operate 4,000 acres of citrus groves, which have been in the Rogers family for four generations. The family\u2019s business, known as \u201cThe Packers of Indian River,\u201d specializes primarily in fresh citrus for consumption – producing oranges, tangerines and grapefruit.<\/p>\n

The family\u2019s groves are geographically diverse, spanning three counties on both the east and west coasts of the state, but geographic diversity doesn\u2019t always protect you from the whims of Mother Nature. \u201cWe have manageable and unmanageable risks,\u201d says Garavaglia. \u201cWe try to eliminate as many of the preventable issues as possible, which include insect damage, bacterial and fungal diseases that attack the tree and crops.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what they can\u2019t manage are large weather events like hard freezes, hurricanes and floods. Garavaglia has seen his share of natural disasters, with three hurricanes hitting the groves in 2004 and 2005 \u2014 at a time when the groves are especially vulnerable. \u201cBy the time August rolls around, you\u2019ve invested about 90 percent of your care taking in the crop, and you are keeping your fingers crossed and hoping for a good harvest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But nothing can really protect a grove, or the fruit on the trees, from a hurricane. \u201cThe fruit is too immature to harvest, and it\u2019s very susceptible to high winds,\u201d he adds. That\u2019s where crop insurance comes into play. Garavaglia purchases the maximum buy-up of multi-peril insurance, \u201cbecause over the years, that\u2019s what has proven to work the best for us,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

When a hurricane blows a good portion of the ripening crop onto the ground, \u201cthe fruit is shot,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd if the winds are high enough, it can take the trees years to recover from the damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another major threat to Florida\u2019s premier citrus industry, and one that made its presence known in 2011, is a \u201chard freeze\u201d \u2013 periods when temperatures go below 28 degrees for four or more hours. This can not only rob a grower of their harvest \u2013 which is their income for the year \u2013 but can kill the grove as well, if the freeze is long and hard enough.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can do everything humanly possible to mitigate the damage during a freeze, but you certainly can\u2019t stop it,\u201d he said. Garavaglia says that in the winter of 2010 and 2011, his groves endured three nights of temperatures that were as low as 22 degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a freeze is on the way, growers spend a significant amount of money to prevent damage by flooding their groves and installing micro-jet irrigation to mist the trees,\u201d he says. \u201cBut when it gets so cold for so long, as it did in 2011, you just know that there is going to be some major damage to the crop, or the trees, or both,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Unlike other weather events, it\u2019s really impossible to assess the extent of the damage of a hard freeze for weeks, or even months. That\u2019s because when those long, cold nights are finally over, it can take several weeks before the fruit starts to drop. \u201cInitially, we lost about 20 percent of the crop on the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cDone.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then over the rest of the season, every box that is brought in has to be specially inspected with samples removed to ensure that parts of the fruit were not dried out from the freeze. \u201dEven if it stays on the tree, half of what\u2019s remaining can be completely dried out and not marketable,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n

Garavaglia explained that crop insurance is different with citrus than with row crops in the Midwest because it can take months to fully assess the damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin several weeks of a deep freeze, an adjuster will visit the grove, and he can spend weeks there going through the damage,\u201d said Garavaglia.<\/p>\n

\u201cFruit can continue to drop for two to three months, which means the adjusting can take months before it is complete,\u201d he explains. But even then, the adjuster is often tasked with checking back after harvest to see if any more fruit was lost during inspection. \u201cBecause of the length of time it takes to assess the damage, claims can take months to finalize,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Garavaglia recounted a crop insurance vignette from a decade ago that demonstrated the critical role crop insurance plays in helping growers bounce back from adversity. The family had purchased another grove and had closed on the deal in August. In late December\/early January, they were hit with a hard freeze and lost nearly 60 percent of the crop immediately. \u201cYou put your whole life savings into a crop every year, and to completely lose a return on an investment, it could wipe you out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we didn\u2019t have crop insurance, we would have lost the grove.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garavaglia says that while crop insurance doesn\u2019t replace a harvest, it\u2019s a critical tool for growers to mitigate some of their biggest risks. \u201cCrop insurance pays for about 65 percent of what it takes to get a crop to market,\u201d he says. \u201cNobody is making a profit on crop insurance, but it\u2019s a great way to provide some risk mitigation on things we can\u2019t control,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida accounts for roughly 70 percent of the U.S. annual production of citrus, of which the vast majority goes into processing, mostly for orange juice. Citrus is big business in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":3177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,40,25],"tags":[51,53],"class_list":["post-3166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-weather","category-whats-cropping-up","tag-safety-net-2","tag-weather-2"],"yoast_head":"\nCROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Mike Garavaglia, Vero Beach, Florida - Crop Insurance Keeps America Growing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Mike Garavaglia, Vero Beach, Florida - Crop Insurance Keeps America Growing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Florida accounts for roughly 70 percent of the U.S. annual production of citrus, of which the vast majority goes into processing, mostly for orange juice. Citrus is big business in […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Crop Insurance Keeps America Growing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-09-11T09:00:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/NCIS_carousel_image_30.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1266\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"573\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Laurie Langstraat\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@UScropinsurance\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@UScropinsurance\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Laurie Langstraat\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Laurie Langstraat\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/#\/schema\/person\/7cf19e3fe01a682ddad2c6dbc59b30f1\"},\"headline\":\"CROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Mike Garavaglia, Vero Beach, Florida\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-09-11T09:00:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida\/\"},\"wordCount\":936,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/NCIS_carousel_image_30.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"safety net\",\"weather\"],\"articleSection\":[\"News Clips\",\"Weather\",\"What's Cropping Up\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/iripreviewsite.com\/cropinsuranceinamerica\/crop-insurance-in-action-mike-garavaglia-vero-beach-florida\/\",\"name\":\"CROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Mike Garavaglia, Vero Beach, Florida - 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