Florida's $9-billion industry, left with flooded groves, uprooted trees and ruined fruit, expects its smallest crop in 13 years.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
Published October 13, 2004
Dwindling harvest
Citrus production in Florida, measured in millions of boxes.
Year
'01-02
'02-03
'03-04
'04-05*
Oranges
230
203
242
176
Grapefruit
47
39
41
15
*Estimate
Florida's hurricane-battered citrus industry got the bad news it expected Tuesday when federal agriculture officials estimated that this year's citrus crop will be the smallest in more than a decade.
And the news is especially bad for anyone with a taste for grapefruit. The last time Florida harvested as little grapefruit as expected this year, Franklin Roosevelt was president.
Three hurricanes that crisscrossed Central Florida in six weeks this summer flooded groves, tore thousands of trees out of the soil and left tons of fruit on the ground, devastating Florida's $9-billion citrus industry. This year's crop is expected to be the smallest in 13 years.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast - measured in 90-pound boxes - predicts a crop of just 176-million units for the 2004-05 season, 27 percent less than the near-record 242-million boxes produced last year.
The harvest of grapefruit, more vulnerable to high winds because it is a larger fruit, is forecast to be 15-million 85-pound boxes, a 63 percent drop.
"Our industry has suffered a pretty severe impact because of the three recent hurricanes," said Dan Gunter, executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus.
The damage is the worst the industry has seen since a string of freezes ending in the 1980s, though tree damage from the hurricanes was generally less severe than from extreme cold.
But Gunter said he didn't expect any growers to go out of business because of the storms.
"I think next year, you'll see the industry bounce back significantly," Gunter said.
For consumers, the heavy losses are likely to offer a mix of good and bad.
Grapefruit and grapefruit products could sometimes be hard to find in the year ahead, and prices are likely to rise as a result.
But, for oranges and orange juice, this rough season came on the heels of last year's bumper crop that had contributed to something of a glut in the industry's juice reservoirs. Most of Florida's oranges are used to produce juice.
Experts say prices for oranges should remain stable and, in fact, some have suggested the losses to this year's crop could help the industry restore some balance to its inventory.
Tom Spreen, a professor at the University of Florida, said he expects the retail price of fresh grapefruit to jump up to 25 cents a pound or more.
He said Florida is the world's largest producer of grapefruit and, unlike oranges, there is no other major foreign supplier to fill the void, or to add significantly to the juice inventory.
"We're in completely uncharted territory on the grapefruit supply," Spreen said.
And not everyone agrees orange juice prices will be stable.
Pete Brace, a spokesman for Tropicana Products, which purchases about a third of Florida's orange crop, said in a statement to the Associated Press that "some price increase is likely due to increased costs."
Many growers, even with aid from the federal government, face significant cleanup expenses from the storms.
Growers expect fruit losses to continue through the season as damaged citrus continues to fall to the ground. The USDA will update its forecast periodically.
If growers can look to an positive side to any of this, it's that fruit prices are expected to climb for growers, if they have any significant fruit left to harvest. And some hope that reducing juice inventories will have a longer term, positive impact on grower prices, which have been stagnant for several years.
"That's probably the one bright spot," said John Alexander, a member of the Citrus Commission and chairman of one of the state's largest growers, Alico Inc. "This loss of fruit and therefore juice will probably bring back into balance supply and demand. Time will tell."
