The Sunshine State’s citrus farmers are holding on after a 95 percent industry decline in the past 30 years.
TERRA CEIA, Fla.—Lifelong citrus farmer Sidney Tillett cut a path through a grove that has endured in his family for four generations, stopping his SUV between two rows of trees. On one side was a long plot of lush green saplings, covered with protective mesh bags tied to stakes in the ground.
Directly on the other side, a row of petite orange trees with withering leaves were all battling a bacterial infection, caused by an invasive insect that has decimated the state’s orange industry in just two decades.
“It’s a story of survival,” Tillett told The Epoch Times, remembering his father’s 25-foot-tall citrus trees that could sometimes produce 1,000 pounds of fruit in a single season.
Now, what trees survive are lucky if their canopies get half that size, or produce any fruit that can be sold at market. What was once 600 acres of citrus trees in the 1970s has now dwindled to five.
The orange—Florida’s inextricable insignia that emblazons license plates, T-shirts, and bumper stickers from affluent coastal towns to rural farming communities—was once the state’s largest cash crop, and positioned the Sunshine State as the country’s majority citrus producer.
Florida harvested a record 244 million boxes of oranges during the 1997–1998 season. This year, the Department of Agriculture estimates Florida will only produce 12.2 million boxes, a stunning 95 percent drop in just under 30 years.
While occasional freezes, catastrophic hurricanes, and an on-and-off, decades-long battle with the citrus canker disease proved to be frustrating setbacks for many orange growers, the destruction of Florida’s citrus industry kicked into high gear in 2005.
That was the year an invasive insect from China—which made its way to the United States through Mexico—introduced a disease that would ultimately decimate Florida’s citrus industry.
The Asian citrus psyllid feeds on citrus tree leaves, causing the plant to contract a bacterial infection known as huanglongbing, commonly called citrus greening.
The disease causes rapid root loss, slowly draining the life from healthy trees as they struggle to absorb and retain nutrients. Oranges languish, struggling to reach full maturity and normal sugar composition—losing the sweet taste that made the fruit an in-demand crop worldwide.
There is no known cure. And the impacts extend far beyond the Sunshine State.
Citrus greening has slashed total U.S. orange production by 80 percent and grapefruit production by 88 percent since 2000, according to a report from the American Farm Bureau Federation. California has now overtaken Florida to become the United States’ largest citrus producer, and nations such as Egypt and South Africa now export more oranges worldwide.
But Florida citrus farmers are not giving up.
By Jacob Burg
