Target Industries

Glades County’s economy has historically been predominately agriculture and natural resource based, creating strong synergies with food processing and other forms of advanced manufacturing, as citrus processing and sugar cane refining have grown to employ advanced manufacturing techniques involving robotics, programable logic controls, hydraulics, machining and mechanics and other transferrable skills. This industry diversification has also lent itself to advances in logistics, creating a strong demand not only for forklift operators and truck drivers, but for IT employees skilled in database management including field to market tracking.  

We have been working to diversify our economic base beyond agriculture, striving to develop a three-legged stool for economic development, continuing with ag as long as ag is sustainable, while encouraging related agribusiness development, including fertilizer production, mulch and lawn care product manufacturing and warehousing and production of building materials and supplies ranging from golf course sands to redimix, mulch to mortar.

Going forward, our goal is to move beyond food processing and agribusiness production to other forms of advanced manufacturing and logistics, such as metals and materials manufacturing, medical device manufacturing and others to take advantage of transferrable skills in conventional and CNC machining, mechanics and other disciplines.

Our remaining “target industries” are in marine industries.

It should be noted that global logistics and advanced manufacturing are target industries for the state of Florida, making projects in those emerging technologies potentially eligible for special incentives.