[Orange Juice] Lowest U.S. Orange Production in over 100 years

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ice-prices-aoe

Orange juice prices are expected to rise further in the US after a bacterial disease and extreme weather intensified by global heating ravaged this season’s crop of the citrus fruit.

Last year Florida, which produces more than 90% of the US’s orange juice supply, was hit by Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Nicole and freezing conditionsin quick succession, devastating orange producers in the Sunshine State.

Producers also battled anincurable citrus greening diseasethat is spread by an invasive insect, rendering fruit unusable. Most infected trees die within a few years, and some producerstold the Financial Timesthey were giving up farming and selling their land.

Industry figures said US orange production would reach its lowest level for more than a century.

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Mentioned it last year, but once again the U.S. orange crop and orange growers are taking it on the chin.

Leave the politics at the door on this one. Let's focus on how extreme weather, greening and blight have ravaged a vital American industry. Another year where the cost of oranges has doubled.

In Florida, which typically produces most of the orange juice consumed in America, Hurricanes Ian and Nicole in the fall of 2022, plus a late freeze later that year, devastated crops already thinned by citrus greening, which cuts off key nutrients to orange trees. Trees infected with the disease produce fewer, lower-quality oranges and eventually die.

Late last year, the US Department of Agriculture predicted that in the 2022-2023 season, Florida was expected to produce 20 million boxes of oranges — a 51% decline from the prior year, and the smallest amount produced since the 1936-1937 season.

By July, the forecast had fallen even further. Last month, the USDA said it expected Florida to produce 15.9 million boxes in 2022-2023.

Citrus greening “has proven to be citrus growers’ greatest challenge,” said Mathew Joyner, CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, a trade association, who added on a hopeful note that “new treatment methods to combat citrus greening are proving effective.”

https://www.weny.com/story/49385251/...-for-consumers