When you think of Florida, you think of sunshine, beautiful beaches, and Florida oranges. Citrus is not only a staple of Florida’s culture, but it is a 6.7 billion dollar in industry for the state. But in the wake of Hurricane Ian and Nicole this past fall, a major freeze last January, and the ongoing Citrus Greening Disease, the industry has been hit hard.
Economists from the University of Florida released on Thursday their estimate of agricultural losses from Hurricane Ian. In their estimates the Florida Citrus Industry lost nearly 250 million dollars for this year alone. That does not account for the replacement of trees, equipment, or infrastructure.
“Growers are struggling to stay in business,” said Ron Mahan, the Vice President and CFO of Tamiami Citrus. “To keep their employees employed. And getting the trees to recover is going to be expensive.”
Mahan has seen firsthand how the citrus industry has been dealing with multiple avenues stress over the last few years. He says Hurricane Ian only just added to the ongoing stress of the industry.
“Hurricane Ian was big, it moved slowly. It touched a lot of groves,” said Mahan. “Even Groves that were just in the tropical storm level winds, suffers losses because the time they were in those winds”
Ian’s wind and rain not only uprooted trees but blew off leaves and valuable fruit.
“While we lost half of our fruit, and in some cases more and some cases less, the trees were in the process of creating that fruit, putting energy into the fruit,” said Mahan. “So even if we might have 50% of our fruit left, that 50% won’t have as good of a juice content.”
Mahan explains that the lower juice content is because the trees were forced to put energy would have put into the fruit, instead into its own repair. It also means loss of income to growers.
“We will lose money from just the loss of the fruit that got blown off, but we also won’t get as much money for the fruit that we have left,” said Mahan.
And that loss of income, Mahan says will likely be felt the next season as well, as trees focused on repair this past winter instead of storing energy for this year’s crop.
“I think what we will see, particularly with a lot of younger trees, they will have suffered a lot of stress, is that next year's crop will be negatively impacted,” said Mahan.
And as costs go up for citrus growers, Mahan says you will likely see that reflected in the grocery store with citrus growers in the US not able to keep up with demand.
“Orange juice prices, retail prices, according to data that I have seen recently, they were at all time, we have never been this high,” said Mahan. “Now Brazil and Mexico are also dealing with disease problems. So, there are production issues they are having as well. We see that in the price of orange juice. You will see that in the price of fresh fruit.”
Mahan tells Fox 4 New, that Florida citrus growers do take insurance on crop loses, but it is not enough to cover the losses that they are currently experiencing. He added that most groves can’t afford the coverage at a high level.
Mahan would like to see a block grant assistance program, like what they had post Hurricane Irma. And while there were funds earmarked for the Florida citrus industry in the December Ominous Bill, the USDA is still working on the best method to distribute those funds to growers.
