Orange juice prices to rise as insect blights Florida trees

IF you like to start the day with a glass of orange juice, then your breakfast might soon get more expensive.

For a tiny bug has been wreaking havoc among the orange groves of Florida – and the cost of the damage is likely to be passed on to consumers.

Production in the sunshine state is expected to drop to its lowest level since 1964. The US department of agriculture has predicted that only 74million boxes will be produced from the current crop – a drop of 24% on last year.

The Florida Department of Citrus fears the figure could plunge even lower to 27million boxes unless a way can be found to stop the bug spreading from tree to tree.

Florida is the biggest citrus producer in the US and the secondlargest producer of orange juice in the world after Brazil.

Many popular brands, such as Tropicana, contain oranges grown in Florida. If there is a shortage of

‘More deadly than hurricanes’

Florida oranges then the US market is likely to source oranges from other countries such as Brazil and Spain, pushing up prices here.

Since 2005, when the disease first took root among Florida’s 500,000 acres of orange groves, production has been steadily declining. The price of frozen orange concentrate – used to make most orange juice – is up 43% since January.

The disease, called citrus greening, is spread by Asian psyllids the size of a pin head. It can lie dormant for two to five years, with the tiny winged insect depositing bacteria that gradually starve trees.

As well as destroying crops, citrus greening has also had an effect on the size of oranges being produced resulting in less concentrate at processing plants. A key reason the bacteria has spread out of control is because the symptoms appear many months after the tree is infected.

Growers in Florida are trying to manage the insects as there is no known way to completely eradicate them – insecticides affect the trees and the honey bee population. The psyllids have also developed resistance to certain chemicals.

Les Dunson, who owns 2,000 acres of orange groves near Orlando, said his production has dropped from a million boxes to 600,000 a year. He said the insects had been ‘more deadly than hurricanes’.