Citrus Forecast Improves Amid Industry Worries
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TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) – Florida's citrus industry got some sweet news Tuesday to help wash away the taste of what's been a sour last few months. An updated crop estimate for the season stood 7 percent above a projection released in April.
Well, it was semi-sweet because the forecast still remains bitter for an industry besieged by citrus greening.
The deadly disease has decreased production, and as this season's crop remains on pace for the lowest harvest in decades.
"Because it's a monthly estimate, there is some variability, but the bottom line is that the crop is a fraction of what it was a decade ago," Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said Tuesday after a state Cabinet meeting. "Until we have long-term relief from citrus greening, we're witnessing the not-so-slow decline of Florida's signature crop."
The Legislature agreed to spend more than $24 million this coming fiscal year for citrus research and marketing efforts to help the industry, which is said to have a $10 billion-a-year economic impact.
Putnam said the priority needs to be research.
"If we don't have anything to market, it doesn't matter," Putnam said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a monthly forecast predicting that this year's Florida orange harvest will be enough to fill an estimated 81.1 million 90-pound boxes, an increase of 5.1 million boxes from the April forecast. The May figure is also 10.1 million higher than when the outlook was posted in March.
Still, even with the revised forecast, the season remains on pace to be 16 percent lower than the 2014-2015 growing season total of 96.94 million boxes.
The harvest has gone down from 133.6 million boxes in the 2012-2013 growing season and 104.7 million boxes in the 2013-2014 season. Production peaked in the 1997-1998 season when 244 million boxes were filled.
Meanwhile, the new forecast for grapefruit production this season grew to 10.85 million boxes, up 150,000 boxes.
At the Florida Department of Citrus, which continues to work on a budget proposal nearly one-third the size of the current year's spending plan, the news was greeted as providing "a little more sunshine to our sunshine state."
"We are glad to see the numbers go up for our growers who continue to produce high-quality, premium citrus in the face of one of the toughest challenges to hit our industry," Shannon Shepp, executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus said in a release.
The department's budget proposal is expected to be released by Monday and will be discussed May 18 during a Florida Citrus Commission meeting. The budget is expected to ultimately lead to a reduction in staff at the agency and a reduction in a "box" tax that growers pay.
The News Service of Florida's Jim Turner contributed to this report.
