Environment

Twenty minutes outside of Gainesville, farmer Roy Brown, runs the family-owned Brown's Farm. Their 4-acre strawberry field was covered Thursday, as Brown prepared for a wind chill around 20 degrees.

Gainesville residents using less energy means generating less money for Gainesville services such as police and parks. To offset the loss, the average bill for a GRU customer increased about $6 in October, resulting in the second highest ranked residential bill in the state.

When a doctor recommended he get more exercise, Hawthorne resident Winford Jenkins, 57, began taking daily walks around the city. After noticing just how much trash cluttered the streets, he decided to do something about it.

The Florida Forever Program, a land acquisition program, hopes to obtain 119 new properties, many of which located in North Central Florida. The lands are assessed based on several criteria to determine their environmental value.

The historic Carney Island orange grove has switched caretakers' hands many times, but the Marion County Board of Commissioners now must face a decision on its future owners and use.

The 1,000-plus acres of diverse land west of Newnans Lake in Gainesville will provide bicycle and hiking trails for the public in spring 2015.

UF Researchers and researchers from the Tropical Research and Education Center, USDA and the Indian River Research and Education Center in Fort Pierce have found an alternate way to control the spread of Laurel wilt, a disease that threatens Florida's avocado industry.

More than 20 organizations have joined Gainesville's Compost on a mission to divert waste from landfills and from it create valuable soil feed.

The Alachua County Energy Management team will be upgrading lights in all county-owned building parking lots to light-emitting diode (LED). The county estimates the new update will save the county a total of $10,000 annually on electricity bills.

The local Cigarette Litter Prevention Program is seeing success after the installation of more than two dozen cigarette receptacles in the downtown area. The program hopes to expand into midtown, despite vandalization by the homeless.