Debby causes up to $263M in farm losses

Jim Turner The News Service of Florida Hurricane Debby caused up to $263.2 million in estimated losses to crops and farm animals when the Category 1 rainmaker swept through North Florida last month. Preliminary findings by the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, known as UF/IFAS, could mean the agricultural damages from Debby were close to losses from Hurricane Idalia, a Category 3 storm that roared across the same rural region nearly a year earlier. “There always are impacts to agriculture of these types of events,” Christa Court, UF/IFAS economic impact analysis program director, said Thursday during a call with reporters. “Hurricane Debby was not