Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday asked U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman to declare 18 of the state’s counties, including Palm Beach and Martin, agricultural disaster areas after a series of freezes in late December and early January.

In addition to the 18 counties Bush named, a disaster declaration would cover 17 other contiguous counties, including St. Lucie. Preliminary damage estimates released Friday by the Florida Department of Agriculture showed the state’s vegetable, fern and tropical fish industries suffered more than $179 million in losses.

Florida’s sugar cane and citrus crops also had significant losses, but those dollar amounts are not known yet. Much depends on the weather and on how much can be harvested in the next few weeks, sugar industry officials said…

Although the value of the loss has not yet been determined, Palm Beach County reported the largest number of acres damaged. The state said 89,719 acres of sugar cane and 890 acres of sweet corn—a total of 90,609 acres—were affected by the freeze…

As for sugar production, under normal conditions, an acre yields 4.44 tons of raw sugar, according to the Florida Sugar Cane League. If the damage on the affected acres is 100 percent, that could translate into nearly 400,000 tons of sugar.

Total Florida production is about 2 million tons of raw sugar a year, or about one-fifth of the nation’s total.

South Florida’s sugar growers continue to evaluate the devastation from the freezes, which brought temperatures in the 20s to western agricultural areas in Palm Beach and Martin counties.

"The reports from the field are good and bad…We are still bringing in frost-damaged cane and milling it," said Judy Sanchez, spokeswoman for Clewiston-based U.S. Sugar Corp.

Bush is requesting emergency loans and other assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A disaster declaration entitles qualified farmers for low-interest loans, but provides no outright aid, said USDA spokeswoman Mary Beth Schultheis.

Generally, the USDA moves quickly on disaster requests, but Schultheis said she could not say when Glickman might act.