Agriculture in Miami-Dade — Miami, Florida

Miami-Dade County contains one of the most economically significant agricultural zones in the continental United States, a fact that stands in sharp contrast to the county seat's global identity as a financial and cultural center. While the City of Miami itself is a dense urban core, the county's southern and western reaches — particularly the Redland district south of Cutler Bay and west of Homestead — constitute a working agricultural landscape that, according to the Miami-Dade County Agriculture Manager, employs more than 20,000 people and generates more than $2.7 billion in annual economic impact. The county ranks first in the United States in production of ornamental plants and second in Florida in overall farm production value. The subtropical climate permits year-round growing, a characteristic the county's agriculture office identifies as fundamental to the industry's national role. Agricultural oversight for the county is managed by the County Agriculture Manager's office, located at the Stephen P. Clark Center at 111 NW 1st Street, while land-use protections for farmland are embedded in the Miami-Dade County Comprehensive Development Master Plan (CDMP).

Miami-Dade County encompasses more than 2,000 square miles of land, of which approximately 500 square miles have been developed for urban uses, according to the CDMP. The Urban Development Boundary (UDB), established in 1983 and embedded in the CDMP, demarcates the western edge of urbanization and separates developed areas from agricultural lands and natural ecosystems that buffer the Everglades. The agricultural zone lies primarily in the southern and western portions of the county, centered on the Redland region.

According to the Caplin News/FIU reporting on the UF/IFAS Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead, the Redland sits on rare oolitic limestone soil with a humid subtropical climate that supports year-round crop production. The USDA has designated Miami-Dade's agricultural soils as having 'unique importance,' a classification noted by the Miami-Dade County Agriculture Manager. The county's dry season runs roughly from November through April — precisely the period when its farms supply a nationally significant share of fresh winter vegetables. Dr. Edward Evans, director of the UF/IFAS Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead, has stated that without this production, the country becomes dependent on foreign producers for fresh vegetables during those months, as reported by Caplin News/FIU in 2024. Crops grown in the Redland include lychee, guava, dragon fruit, winter vegetables, and mangoes, among other tropical and subtropical varieties.

The USDA 2017 Census of Agriculture county profile for Miami-Dade recorded total market value of agricultural products sold at approximately $837.7 million, with crops accounting for roughly $827.9 million — placing the county second in Florida by farm production value. Total farmland in 2017 stood at 78,543 acres. The 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture provides the most recent federal benchmark for changes since that period.

Crop composition in 2017 was documented in the 2023 Miami-Dade County and UF/IFAS joint study as follows: vegetables occupied 38 percent of farmland, nursery and floriculture crops 35 percent, and fruit orchards 27 percent. The same study found that approximately 89 percent of the county's agricultural products are shipped out of the region to markets in the northeastern and central United States and Canada, characterizing Miami-Dade agriculture as primarily export-oriented rather than locally consumed. The county ranks first in the United States in ornamental plant production, a distinction the Miami-Dade County Agriculture Manager attributes to the combination of climate, soils, and established horticultural infrastructure.

Miami was incorporated as a city in 1896, the same year Henry Flagler extended the Florida East Coast Railway to the area. Early agricultural development accompanied initial settlement: homesteaders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries cleared pine woods and hammock lands across what are now Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, and Allapattah, converting them to farms and citrus groves, as documented by the Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition in partnership with HistoryMiami Museum. One enduring artifact of that era is the Haden mango — one of the most prominent mango varieties in South Florida — cultivated from a Mulgova seed planted in Coconut Grove in 1902 by Captain John J. Haden, according to the same source.

By the 1930s, a distinct agricultural economy had taken root in the Redland district of South Dade. Truck farmers brought vegetables and fruits to Miami's downtown curb market and to the north bank of the Miami River for sale, as documented by the Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition. The term 'Redlands' derived from the reddish hue of portions of the surface soil. Commercial farming persisted in neighborhoods now fully urbanized — including Allapattah — as late as the 1950s. Agricultural land in Miami-Dade peaked at over 120,000 acres in 1959, according to the 2023 Miami-Dade/UF/IFAS joint study. By 2017, total farmland had contracted to 78,543 acres, and by September 2023, Agriculture Classified lands stood at approximately 52,630 acres.

The primary instrument for protecting Miami-Dade's agricultural lands from urban encroachment is the Urban Development Boundary, established in 1983 and embedded in the Comprehensive Development Master Plan. The CDMP is reviewed and updated every seven years by the Miami-Dade County Planning Division. According to Florida Audubon, the UDB was specifically designed to limit westward development and protect agricultural lands adjacent to Everglades restoration zones.

The effectiveness of this approach is reflected in farmland loss data. Between 1997 and 2017, Miami-Dade lost 6.2 percent of its farmland — a rate substantially lower than the 29.7 to 71.8 percent losses experienced by comparable large metropolitan counties over the same period, as documented by the 2023 Miami-Dade/UF/IFAS study, which attributed this outcome to the UDB and related land-use policies.

A complementary mechanism is the Miami-Dade County Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) Program, created in 2007 using voter-approved General Obligation Bond funds. According to the Miami-Dade County Agriculture Manager, the PDR Program provides a mechanism for the county to purchase residential development rights from willing agricultural landowners, thereby preserving farmland without requiring full public acquisition of the land itself.

Several institutional actors shape agricultural activity, research, and public education in Miami-Dade. The County Agriculture Manager's office, based at the Stephen P. Clark Center at 111 NW 1st Street, coordinates county-level agricultural policy and administers programs including the Purchase of Development Rights Program. The UF/IFAS Extension Miami-Dade County program serves as the formal liaison between University of Florida researchers and local agricultural producers and communities, operating community education programs on nutrition and food systems and supporting the Florida 4-H youth agricultural program in the county. The UF/IFAS Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead functions as the primary applied research institution for tropical crop agriculture in the region.

The Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition, in partnership with HistoryMiami Museum, has developed a public agricultural heritage exhibit documenting the county's farming history and providing civic education on South Florida agriculture's origins and contemporary significance. This collaboration traces the county's agricultural roots from subsistence and truck farming in the early 20th century through to the present industry structure. The CDMP's agricultural land-use designations are administered by the Miami-Dade County Planning Division, which governs the seven-year review cycle that can revise the UDB and other agricultural protections.

In October 2023, Miami-Dade County and UF/IFAS released the Evaluation of Agricultural Land Use Trends and Outlook in Miami-Dade County, Florida, a comprehensive study commissioned by the Board of County Commissioners via Resolution R-423-22, adopted May 3, 2022. The study projected future land needs to sustain a viable agricultural industry through 2050 and identified approximately 52,630 acres of Agriculture Classified lands as of September 2023, a decline from 58,606 acres in 2017. The report noted that more than 20,000 acres had been lost to suburban expansion in the preceding decades, according to Caplin News/FIU coverage of the study's findings.

In March 2024, Miami-Dade commissioners approved a new agritourism district in the Redland area by a 10-2 vote, allowing expanded amusement operations, additional structures, and increased parking in the historically agricultural zone, as reported by WLRN. Critics raised concerns about the farming character of the area and potential conflicts with Florida's 2013 agritourism statute. Separately, a proposed UDB expansion that would have converted farmland to industrial use was blocked in February 2025, when the First District Court of Appeal ruled that Miami-Dade County had missed its statutory deadline for the boundary amendment, as reported by Audubon. The court's ruling preserved the existing agricultural land designations that the expansion would have removed, at least pending any subsequent proceedings.