In this installment of The Science Behind, we’ll explore Dr. Malek Hammami’s focus at the UF/IFAS Tropical Research & Education Center. Dr. Hammami’s research aims to understand how fruit, vegetable, and ornamental crops are grown and produced in south Florida in order to optimize farm budgets and allow growers to identify and capitalize on new market opportunities. What’s he working on now?
Avocados
Dr. Hammami is working with Drs. Romina Gazis, Bruce Schaffer, and Daniel Carrillo to evaluate the economic efficiency of avocado production in south Florida. Accounting for the mitigation efforts of Laurel Wilt and other pressures, Dr. Hammami and his team can support farmers evaluate the economic efficiency of their farms. In addition to surveying growers, Dr. Hammami collaborates with the Avocado Administrative Committee to understand the regulation of Florida avocados.
With Florida’s avocado production area potentially expanding to the north, another operational challenge some growers face is cold temperatures and, this year, a multi-day freeze. While finding cold-hardy avocados is not in the scope of work for Dr. Hammami, understanding the expansion of the industry, adaptability of markets to shocks and the weather-related impacts is. Also of interest, would be how these factors allow avocado production to expand domestically and internationally. Avocados from Canada? anyone? Ultimately, as with all UF/IFAS researchers, Dr. Hammami aims to help Florida growers stay competitive.
For stakeholders interested in investing in avocado and other specialty crops, the Food and Resource Economics (FRE) program at the UF/IFAS Tropical Research and Education Center (TREC) offers an interactive tool that helps startup growers simulate and evaluate basic production and profitability scenarios across several crops, just to get started.
Agrivoltaics
Another way Dr. Hammami is helping Florida growers stay competi-
tive is finding alternative means of income using their most profitable asset: their land. The U.S. Department of Energy defines agrivoltaics as the practice of locating agricultural production, such as crops, livestock, or pollinator habitats, underneath solar panels or between rows of solar panels. At TREC, some of the crops grown under solar panels includes tropical hibiscus, vanilla, dragon fruit, and philodendron. By participating in this study, UF/IFAS aims to provide Florida’s farmers with science-based information to guide their decision-making as the available acreage for agriculture decreases.
We hope you’ll stay tuned as Dr. Hammami continues to optimize farm budgets for farmers.
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