Saw palmetto berry industry adjusts after plant deemed 'commercially exploited' (2025)

When saw palmetto berry pickers headed back into Florida's wilderness as the harvesting season began in August, it wasn'tjust the heat and wild animals they had to worry about.

This year, for the first time, they also needed permits.

The plant was designated this summer as "commercially exploited" in Florida, leaving pickers and buyers scrambling to learn the rules, and state Department of Agriculture workers wading through hundreds of rushed applications.

Dozens of rule violators have been arrested statewide, and the season is only halfway over.

More: Is FWC feeding Lake Okeechobee algae blooms with Roundup and other glyphosate herbicides?

The designation is one for native plant species removed in significant numbers from the wild and sold.

Saw palmetto is one of the most common plants in Florida, but conservationists worry it may not always be that way. The extract from ripe berries is used as a nutritionalsupplement in the United Statesand in prescriptions throughout Europe to treat prostate and urinary problems.

Between 45 and 50 million pounds of berries are harvested each year in the United States, 80 percent of which is exported, according to estimates from Valensa International, a leading manufacturerbased in Lake County.

More: Treasure Coast sees increase in kratom-involved deaths, Medical Examiner's Office says

The crop is almost exclusively found in Florida, and it’s an entirely wild harvest. Nobody grows or farms it.

The U.S. market alone is valued at more than$15 million, according to the American Botanical Council.

The idea behind permitting was to establish a paper trail in the lucrative cash industry to help law enforcement catch illegal harvesters and protect berries on both private and government lands.

More: Hands off! Don't pick saw palmetto berries from public lands

"This is a Florida treasure. We have to make sure it's being responsibly cared for," said Bill Donovan, a senior vice president at Valensa International.

'Se compra bolita'

The low-growing, spiky plants are found throughout Florida, though their range extends west to Texas and north to South Carolina. They are ancient, capable of living for 10,000 years, botanists have found.

"There's no doubt the wild ones are quite old. They're part of Florida," said Richard Moyroud, chairman of Florida’s Endangered Species Council.

The berries are harvested between August and October, a time when there's no citrus, tomatoes, grapes or much of anything else to harvest in the state.

More: Citrus leaders 'start from scratch' after Putnam's loss in Florida governor's race

They have an unpleasant, bitter taste, akin to "rotten cheese steeped in tobacco juice," according to Jonathan Dickinson, a merchant shipwrecked on Jupiter Island in the 1690s.

But it's not their taste that drives the market.

It's the oil that saturates the fruit as it ripens and quadruples in size. The berries are ideal when they are plump and black, but the splotchy golden ones are just as prized. When they are green, they won’t have enough oil to make extraction worthwhile.

Harvesting is hard work. You must wear long pants, long sleeves, gloves and snake-proof boots to avoid being cut up by the thorns lining each fanning leaf. Hand pruners are essential.

"Those bushes are prone to being a good home for wasps. You've got spiders. You've got rattlesnakes that like the dense cover. And the bushes themselves are very sharp,"said Alan Shelby, vice president of the Florida Forestry Association, which represents forest landowners and lobbied for the plants' new designation.

"The folks that do it are pretty brave in my opinion."

More: Where to find, how to grow native plants in Treasure Coast gardens

One person can bring in 1,000 pounds in one day if they're in the right spot, as the plants grow in dense clumps. Harvesters must also beware of bears, alligators and wild boars; avoid getting lost in the wildlands; and pack enough water to prevent heat exhaustion.

"It’s the hottest environment you can possibly imagine," said Jeremiah Kirby, of Indiantown.

Kirby and his wife raked in $42,000 two years ago by picking on weekends and some evenings after working their regular jobs.

Buyers scattered throughout the state pay harvesters in cash, but keeping thousands of dollars on hand can be dangerous. A Palm Bay buyerwas found dead Sept. 10 of a gunshot wound.

The shooting rattled other buyers, with Ruben Zamarripasaying it prompted him to add surveillance cameras the following day to the Fellsmere warehouse from which he buys berries.

More: Don't drive Endangered Species Act into extinction | TCPalm Editorial Board

Buyersdon’t need permits of their own, but must copy the permits and permission letters of everyone who drops berries off in exchange for cash.

"This year's going to be very different for us. It's going to be a learning experience," Zamarripa said. "They're watching the buyers and the pickers now. I've already had the chief of police up here twice."

Juanita Almanza buys berries behind her taco restaurant down the street from Zamarripa. A sign on the roadway reads, "Se compra bolita,"which translated from Spanish means, "We buy berries."

"This is one of those years where it’s been a light crop,"Almanza said. "In a way, it's good this law came when it did. Because there's not a lot of berries."

She said she turns people away often for not having the proper documentation.

"It's not worth the fine, believe me," she said.

Spreading the word

The Endangered Plant Advisory Council met Feb. 21 in Gainsville to discuss saw palmetto at the behest of law enforcement and the Florida Forestry Association, according to Moyroud.

"This was kind of an unusual — almost an emergency meeting," Moyroud said, necessary to get regulations in place before the berries ripened in late summer.

More: FPL, Audubon partner on Solar Sanctuary program to create wildlife habitat at power plants

The council unanimously voted to recommend the saw palmetto be listed as commercially exploited, and the Department of Agriculture added it to the list July 17.

"The harvest, we have been told by wildlife officials, may actually impact the survival of native animals," Moyroud said.

Birds, raccoons, gopher tortoises, bears and other creaturesrely on the berries.

None of the nine currently listed commercially exploited plants are endangered or threatened, but experts warn they could be if left unprotected.

The Department of Agriculture hosted meetings throughout the state in a scramble to spread the word about the new rules, with presentations in English, Spanish and Creole.

More: Audubon-certified golf courses help keep Indian River Lagoon clean

At one such meeting in Fellsmere Aug. 13, one of the 75 people attending asked why the information wasn't disseminated earlier, as the berries were already "falling off the bush."

"We weren't anticipating this at all. This was not on our radar. It just fell in our lap," replied Tracy Wright, a Department of Agriculture environmental supervisor.

At the time of the meeting, 320 permits had been issued out of 895 applications. Each takes 14 days to process, but that’s only if it's error-free.

By mid-September, more than 1,100 permits had been issued out ofmore than 1,750 applications, according to Department of Agriculture officials. Of those,about 400 were awaiting additional information from the applicant.

"We've pulled in a lot of people," Wright said. "We're not doing bad on the valid permits. It takes time."

The two-page permit is free and valid for a year. You must list the locations from which berries will be harvested and seek out permission letters from property owners if it's not your land.

More: Toxic algae in St. Lucie River may have killed 1 dog, sickened 5 others, Stuart vet says

Even if you are harvesting on your own land, you need a permit if you intend to sell the berries.

Wright, who said there is no limit on the number of permits that may be issued, anticipates things going much more smoothly next season.

"What I would probably do is, probably about April I'd put in for my permit. And then you'll have more than enough time. We'll have it streamlined by then,"he told the Fellsmere crowd.

Most buyers have permit applications on hand and help guide pickers through the process to ensure they have a steady supply to legally purchase.

"You’ve gotta educate them,"said Michael Baker, who buys berries in Indiantown. "I got one guy who's gone to 100 different residences and gotten permission. It wasn't a big window of time to get all these permission letters… And then it has to be approved."

More: Aerial images show toxic algae invading Martin County waterways

Cracking down

At least 85people have been arrested on the Treasure and Space coasts for illegally harvesting the berries, a misdemeanor punishable byup to a year in jail.

As of Sept. 26, court records showed 47 arrests in Brevard County, 22 arrests in St. Lucie County andeight arrests eachin Indian River and Martin counties.

While some were found in the act of berry-picking or trespassing, many were caught during traffic stops or parked along the road.

Giving law enforcement the ability to catch illegal harvesters in the act was at the heart of the rule change.

"When a poacher comes in, they'll come in under the cover of darkness and just wipe out the berries on a section of property," Shelby said.

More: FWC investigator Kyle Patterson receives Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation Award for saving marine life

"If we were to get a call from a landowner and we didn’t catch them in the act, there's nothing we could do — even if they had berries," said Tod Goodyear, spokesman for the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. "You had to actually catch them trespassing."

Now, a paper trail follows the berries until they arrive at processing plants.

Baker said he's been visited by Martin County sheriff's deputies, Florida Highway Patrol troopers and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers.

"It made sense to at least try to address this problem,"Moyroud said. "If it works well, it will stay in place. If there are problems, we'll try and solve them."

Cash crop

The berries are a commodity, with a price that steadily climbs throughout the season but is prone to sudden leaps or crashes.

At the beginning of August, buyers were paying $1 per pound. Less than a week later, the price shot to $3.Throughout September, the price hovered near $4, reaching a peak of $4.75, Baker said.

More: Vero Beach's Shining Light Garden has new mission in growing 'miracle fruit'

"What's the price? What's the price? I mean all day long. That thing's nonstop," said Baker, who buys berries,as he fielded calls and texts every couple of minutes.

Baker has been in the saw palmetto business since 1995. He doesn’t simply wait for pickers to come to him in Indiantown — he has harvesting crews who pick on ranches, in homeowners associations and on golf courses from St. Lucie County to the Palm Beaches.

"The demand has increased big time over the last five years," Baker said. "In the '90s they bought 'em for 10 cents."

Buyers sellthe berries toprocessing plants, which dry them. It takes 3 pounds of wet berries to make a pound of dryberries, Baker said.

More: Bill Nelson: Congress poised to pass compromise WRDA bill; OKs Lake Okeechobee reservoir

The dried fruits are then resold to manufacturers to be transformed into pills, gel capsules or vitamins. The berries have been used for medicinal purposes for centuries and since the mid-1990s, have been a top-selling herb in the United States.

"Once that moisture is taken out of the berry, they can last for years," said Donovan, of Valensa International.

It's good to have those supplies, in case of light crops like this year's or natural disasters like last year’s Hurricane Irma.

"It knocked all the berries off the plants. It was over. Over. We had ranchers saving their berries, waiting for the $4, $5 berries. They lost 'em all," Baker said.

In the 2017 season, Baker bought and resold 4 million pounds of berries.

This year, he washoping for 2 million pounds, but closed after just 31 days because of the low yield.

"It’s Mother Nature. That’s just the way it is," he said.

What’s on the permit?

There are many things a permit-seeker must specify on the free two-page application for permission to harvest commercially exploited plants:

• Latin and common name of the plant: Saw palmetto is also known as Serenoa repens.
• Quantity or percentage of the plant to be harvested: Pickers typically remove 100 percent of a saw palmettoplant’s berries.
• Methods by which plants will be removed: Saw palmetto berries are typically hand-picked.
• Purpose of removal: May be for sale, research, propagation or clearing for farming or development.
• Location of property from which plants will be harvested: Latitude and longitude; town, section and range; and street addresses are all acceptable. Permission letters must be attached if the applicant doesn’t own the property.
• Name of those authorized to collect under the permit: Harvesting crews or landowners who employ a large number of pickers may list supervisors.

Florida's commercially exploited plants

• Butterfly orchid (Encyclia tampensis)
• Green-fly orchid (Epidendrum conopseum)
• Nodding club-moss (Lycopodium cernuum)
• Cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea)
• Royal fern (Osmunda regalis)
• Needle palm (Rhapidophyllum hystrix)
• Pink azalea (Rhododendron canescens)
• Coontie, all species (Zamia)
• Saw palmetto (Serenoa repens)