ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — Florida's agriculture could end up feeling the effects of Hurricane Ian.
Here in the Quad Cities, local businesses worry about the cost of food products rising.
James 'Snoop' Ramirez, who runs the Snoop's Grill and Bilo's Catering business in Rock Island said he's struggled with price hikes in the past.
"California here about a month ago, they had to plow their fields in because they didn't have water to take care of their farm," Snoop said. "So overnight, literally tomatoes went up $9 a case. If the fields down there in Florida get affected, who's telling what stuff's gonna cost?"
The University of Florida is worried that over 375,000 acres of citrus crops may have been damaged by Hurricane Ian.
In addition, over 200,000 acres of vegetables, 70,000 acres of housed livestock and 95,000 acres of field crops like cotton and peanuts may have been affected.
Dr. Christa Court, a professor of regional economics at the University of Florida specializes in assessing the economic impact of natural disasters. She explained how storm winds and precipitation can damage crops.
"Not a lot of agriculture is right near the coast where you're seeing a lot of this video come out about storm surge," Court said. "But there's certainly still inland flooding - especially when you have a very large storm that's dropping a lot of precipitation on a large area."
Another major concern is damage to infrastructure, like farm buildings, homes and irrigation systems.
"There's not that many people that can come in and repair these types of systems or look for replacement parts," Court said.
She also explained that it's difficult to pinpoint an exact price change you could see at the supermarket, as it depends on how many crops are damaged and their age.
"If it was something that was just planted and you're able to get back quickly, you can replant and potentially just see a slightly delayed crop instead of revenues that are no longer coming in," Court said. "But then you've had the added expenditures of cleaning up and replanting, so that profit will be a little bit smaller."
For comparison, the University of Florida said 2017's Hurricane Irma caused over $1 billion of agricultural damage.
Court notes that Irma caused more destruction across the entire state of Florida, whereas Ian has hit the southwest peninsula the hardest. She added that the severity of the damage could put the cost higher or lower.
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