An example of an orange affected by citrus greening, a disease that is wiping out Florida's citrus industry.
(UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center)- Florida's orange crop is expected to decline by 20% this year.
- The industry's been battered by disease and weather in recent years.
- Most of the state's oranges are used for juice.
A raging disease is squeezing Florida's orange industry to historically low production levels at the same time demand surged for the fruit's vitamin-packed juice.
Orange production in the Sunshine State is expected to be down 20% this season from the last, according to a report issued Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA says Florida's orange growers will harvest 54 million boxes of the iconic fruit in the 2020-21 season, compared to 63 million boxes in 2019-2020.
There's only been one year since 1947 that produced fewer oranges, according to Bloomberg News. That was 2017-18, after Hurricane Irma battered the state.
(MORE: A Florida Waterway Recently Resembled an Ice Rink. It's Likely Something Far Worse.)
The industry has been in decline for decades, but in recent years has suffered a significant blow from "citrus greening," an insect-borne bacteria. The disease, also known as Huanglongbing, HLB, or yellow dragon disease, causes discolored and misshapen fruit that's bitter to the taste. Once a tree is infected, there's no cure.
Florida's also had bouts with another disease known as citrus canker.
Orange production in Florida has declined 76% since 2004, the year before greening was first discovered in the state, according to the Lakeland Ledger.
By 2019, 90% of the orange groves in Florida were infected with greening, the Washington Post reported. Many have been abandoned.
"We’re fighting the most devastating disease in the history of Florida, the most devastating disease in citrus," Mike Sparks, the chief executive at Florida Citrus Mutual, an interest group for the state’s growers, told the Ledger.
The number of acres planted with orange trees was dropping even before greening took hold. Orange groves covered more than a thousand square miles of the state in 1994. In 2020, the number was 600 square miles.
The weather has also taken its toll. Most of the state's oranges are grown in a 10-county region known as the Citrus Belt, which mostly stretches across the southern portion of Central Florida. The region's been battered by hurricanes in recent years, and drought in others.
Raymond Royce, executive director at Highlands County Citrus Growers Association, told Bloomberg that some groves suffered from lack of rain last year, while others have root damage from storm flooding.
Hurricane Irma in 2017 was estimated to have caused more than $1 billion in damage to Florida's citrus industry as a whole, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Trees were knocked down, and fruit fell into flooded groves.
Florida still grows more oranges than any other state, and most of them are used to make juice. Demand for orange juice has soared during the coronavirus pandemic, presumably because of its high vitamin C content and other potential health benefits.
Retail sales of OJ were up 10% in October from a year prior, Bloomberg reported.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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January 15, 2021 at 06:48PM
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