1992 — Hurricane Andrew slams South Florida’s farm belt

In the pre-dawn hours of August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew made landfall in South Florida as a Category 5 storm, tearing across Miami-Dade’s agricultural heartland around Homestead and the Redland. While Andrew is often remembered for the destruction of homes and schools, its imprint on U.S. agriculture was profound: nurseries, tropical fruit groves, winter vegetables, and supporting infrastructure were shredded in a matter of hours.

The storm’s compact but extreme winds leveled shade houses and greenhouses, uprooted or defoliated vast swaths of avocado and mango trees, flattened vegetable fields, and mangled irrigation and packing facilities. Direct agricultural losses topped the billion-dollar mark, a staggering blow to what was then the nation’s largest concentration of tropical fruit and ornamental nursery production.

• Category 5 landfall on August 24, 1992; peak winds strong enough to obliterate light agricultural structures.
• Nursery and tropical fruit sectors—pillars of Miami-Dade’s farm economy—suffered catastrophic damage.
• Recovery spurred a rebuild of shade-house design, stronger codes, and wider adoption of risk management tools, including crop insurance and diversified marketing.
• Andrew set a new baseline for hurricane preparedness across U.S. specialty crop regions, influencing everything from windbreak planning to generator capacity at cold storage sites.

1970 — The Salad Bowl strike erupts in California’s Salinas Valley

On August 24, 1970, tensions over representation of field workers in California’s lettuce and vegetable industry boiled over in the Salinas Valley. After growers signed contracts with the Teamsters covering field labor—long a point of contention with the United Farm Workers (UFW)—the UFW called a strike and launched a nationwide boycott of nonunion lettuce. The confrontation, soon known as the “Salad Bowl strike,” grew into one of the largest and most consequential farm labor disputes in U.S. history, stretching into 1971 and spreading beyond Salinas to other vegetable regions.

The strike and boycott disrupted harvests, drew national attention to farmworker pay and conditions, and reshaped the bargaining landscape. The fallout accelerated negotiations that yielded improved wages and benefits in some contracts and helped set the stage for California’s landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, the first state law to recognize and regulate collective bargaining in agriculture.

• August 24, 1970 marked the flashpoint in Salinas; thousands of workers participated as the dispute widened.
• The boycott of iceberg lettuce became a defining consumer action in farm labor history.
• Long-term impact included stronger frameworks for labor relations in California agriculture and new organizing models later applied to grapes, vegetables, and beyond.

2014 — The South Napa earthquake rattles wine country at harvest’s doorstep

Just after 3 a.m. on August 24, 2014, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck near American Canyon, jolting Napa and Sonoma counties as wineries prepared for the crush. While vines and grapes largely withstood the shaking, many wineries saw barrels and tanks topple, catwalks twist, and equipment fail—spilling thousands of gallons of wine and halting operations during a critical window.

The quake prompted widespread investment in seismic retrofits, barrel rack restraints, and emergency power and water systems across the wine industry. It also sharpened business continuity planning for processors and cooperage, underscoring that agricultural resilience hinges not only on the crop but on the specialized infrastructure that moves harvest to market.

• Magnitude 6.0 quake on August 24, 2014, with concentrated losses in winery facilities and storage.
• Triggered best-practice updates in seismic safety for tanks, racks, and production buildings.
• Highlighted the importance of insurance, redundancy, and mutual aid agreements during harvest.

Why August 24 still matters for U.S. agriculture

The through line across these August 24 milestones is resilience. Andrew’s devastation remade hurricane planning for specialty crops; the Salad Bowl strike reshaped labor relations that underpin reliable harvests; the Napa earthquake reframed how producers secure the processing backbone of high-value crops. Together they offer a durable checklist for today’s producers and policymakers:

• Harden the system, not just the field: invest in structures, power, water, and logistics that keep product moving post-shock.
• Center people: stable, fairly compensated labor and clear bargaining frameworks support both productivity and supply-chain reliability.
• Plan for compounding risks: extreme weather, seismic events, wildfire smoke, and market shocks increasingly interact—stress-test operations accordingly.
• Use layered risk tools: crop insurance, disaster programs, diversification, and private contingency plans each cover different failure points.