The $18 million being offered to citrus nursery growers in the Florida for the 4.3 million trees lost to the canker eradication programme is not enough to support the industry, it has been claimed this week.

The Florida Nurseryman’s Association (FNA) is asking the US Department for Agriculture (USDA) for clarification on an interim rule for nursery compensation that was issued this week, according to Chuck Reed, owner of Reed Brothers Citrus and a FNA board member.

He said: “This will not save the nursery industry. This $18 million will not do.”

The $100 million citrus canker compensation funding is the first to include nursery growers, and will bring the total compensation for Florida’s citrus industry to $536 million, according to the USDA.

Ken Bedat, Miami-based control director of the USDA program, has estimated that $176 million is needed to complete the payments to the growers alone.

The number of trees removed across the state during the 10-year battle with the bacterial disease has reached nearly 16 million, according to Florida state officials. The number of trees taken from commercial citrus groves has risen 10.1 million from the 7.5 million destroyed by the end of the canker programme in January.

The eradication losses, along with repeated canker outbreaks, have created a demand for at 5 million new trees each year for the next 15 years, says Reed.

Production in 2007 is forecast at only 700,000 to 800,000 trees.

The canker eradication programme destroyed 65 per cent of the stock at nurseries that grow starter plants.

A joint study by the University of Florida and Florida Citrus Mutual found it would take between $27.5 million to pay the industry for the value of the trees destroyed, plus two years of lost production.

The industry estimates that it will take a total of $65 million to build the bug-proof greenhouses that will be required to grow plants for sale by January 2008.

“The nursery industry doesn’t have the money to do that. That is why there is going to be a severe shortage of trees,” said Reed. “”That is why it is so critical that the nurseries get help. Otherwise, the entire citrus industry will be gone, and it is at crisis point now.”

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