Florida Citrus Production Suffers
Lakeland, FL-
By ANUK Staff
1.30.13
The situation for the 2012-13 Florida citrus crop has taken a turn for the worse – the size just isn’t there. The downturn takes place on the heels of a USDA estimate that the crop would decline by 5 percent at the hands of dry weather and disease, according to the Highlands Today.
"The current concern is that we continue to see dropping of fruit from the trees and the fruit is not sizing up," said Michael W. Sparks, CEO and executive vice president of Lakeland-based industry organization Florida Citrus Mutual. "It's not as big as growers anticipate. So there is less juice in that fruit. And that is becoming a grave concern to growers."
Vic Story, who runs 5,000 acres in Lake Wales said, "We are seeing a decrease in our crop this year, primarily because of the dry weather and the disease pressure from greening."
Many growers in the Florida citrus deal have been using enhanced nutrition programs in recent years to boost the size of their fruit, but this season, the results are continuing to be lackluster.
For some small growers, operating margins have been reduced by as much as 40-60 percent, Story said.
"Pound solids" — the metric for measuring juice times sugar as a formula for market value — are also decreasing. "If you multiply that out according to the size of your crop, that's hurting us, too," Story said.
He added that he has never seen the production climate as bad as it is now in his 40 years running the operation. "The only thing I've ever seen that compares to this is a major freeze," he said. "And the last time we had one was back in 1989."
Greening prevention measures also increased production costs, said Story.
Sparks dubbed the enduring convergence of negative circumstances "the perfect storm."
Story is concerned that if Florida continues to low production, Brazil might try to take advantage of that by shipping more product into the U.S.
"They've got a lot of inventory built up down there," he said. "And if we can't supply the U.S. market, they will. And that would cost American jobs and in particular, it would hurt the Central Florida economy."
