FOOD SECURITYCan Florida’s Orange Growers Survive Another Hurricane Season?
Oranges are synonymous with Florida, but a perfect storm of hurricanes, diseases, and water scarcity threatens to wipe out the state’s famed citrus industry.
Oranges are synonymous with Florida. The zesty fruit can be spotted adorning everything from license plates to kitschy memorabilia. Ask any Floridian and they’ll tell you that the crop is a hallmark of the Sunshine State.
Jay Clark would be quick to agree. He’s 80 and a third-generation grower working land his family has owned in Wauchula since the 1950s. But he’s not sure how much longer he can keep at it. Two years ago, Hurricane Ian pummeled trees already weakened by a virulent and incurable disease called citrus greening. It took more than a year to recover after the “whole crop was basically blown off” by 150 mph winds. “It’s a struggle,” said Clark. “I guess we’re too hard-headed just to quit totally, but it’s not a profitable business right now.”
His family once owned almost 500 acres in west central Florida, where they grew oranges and raised beef. They’ve sold much of that land in recent years, and have scaled back their citrus groves. “We’re concentrating more on the cattle,” he said. “Everybody’s looking for an alternative crop or solution.”
The state, which grows roughly 17 percent of the nation’s oranges, grapefruit, and other tangy fruit, produced just 18.1 million boxes during the 2022 to 2023 growing season, the smallest harvest in almost a century. That’s a 60 percent decrease from the season before, a decline driven largely by the compounding impacts of mysterious pathogens and hurricanes. This year, the USDA’s just-released final forecasts for the season reveal an 11.4 percent spike in production over last year, but that’s still not even half of what was produced during the 2021 to 2022 season.
Consumers across the country have felt the squeeze from these declines, which have been compounded by floods throttling harvests in Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of orange juice. All of this has pushed the cost of the beverage to record highs.
As climate change makes storms increasingly likely, diseases kill more trees, and water grows harder to come by, Florida’s nearly $7 billion citrus industry faces an existential threat.
