The Florida Department of Citrus could lose US$5m for its marketing programmes, while the Fresh From Florida programme stands to have its spending cut by more than 84 per cent.
This is the potential scenario if the Florida House of Representative's proposed 2017/18 state budget gets the green light, News Chief reported.
Adam Putnam, chief executive of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Customer Service – which runs the Fresh From Florida programme – said small farms would be worst hit if the cuts came into play.
'This is a political assault on a good programme that will have real consequences on real people,' he said. 'Gutting the Fresh From Florida programme will hurt Florida's small farms the most – their ability to raise awareness for the high quality of their locally grown products and compete against lesser-quality products from foreign countries.'
According to News Chief, the budget proposal would cut the programme for marketing all of Florida's agricultural commodities from the US$12.86m requested by Putnam down to just US$2m.
