The latest figures from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that 2011 was a year of record exports.
Farm exports reached a high of $137.4 billlion (£88.8bn) - some $22.5bn more than the previous best - with 1.15 million people employed by the industry. “Furthermore, agriculture continues to bolster our nation’s economy by contributing a trade surplus year after year,” said US agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack. “This year that surplus hit $42.7bn, a record. And next year looks equally strong for the US agricultural economy.”
Certainly Florida’s citrus industry is set for a strong year, according to the USDA’s latest forecast, with 150m boxes of oranges expected to be produced - up on the first forecast of the season, which pegged the crop at 147m boxes.
Even this original figure, however, represented growth of five per cent year on year. Crop development has been driven by a heavy and widespread citrus bloom that covered much of the state’s growing area in late February and early March last year, while weather patterns were dry, with drought conditions covering the majority of Florida’s production region through the first part of the growing season.
According to the USDA, steady irrigation helped to maintain adequate moisture in most areas, before seasonal showers in August and September brought relief to drought-impacted regions in the northern, western and southern areas, leaving trees in good condition and the orange and grapefruit forecasts up on 2010/11. “This number is not a surprise. We’ve had good rain over the summer and a large bloom in the spring, so this is pretty close to what we expected,” says Michael Sparks, executive vice-president and chief executive of the state’s largest citrus grower organisation, Florida Citrus Mutual. “I’ve been in groves across the state and I can tell you this season Florida will once again produce the finest citrus in the world. At this size, with our inventories, we would hope that the market will continue to put upward pressure on grower returns.”
According to the USDA forecast, Florida is expected to produce some 19.4m boxes of grapefruit this season, a slight decrease on the 19.75m boxes harvested by the industry in the previous year. Early and mid-season citrus varieties are projected to come in at 75m boxes, with Valencias expected to total the same number. The Navel orange forecast is 2.7m boxes, four per cent of the non-Valencia total, while all orange-bearing trees are estimated to be 57.4m, a drop of one per cent on the previous year.
For speciality citrus fruit, meanwhile, USDA has predicted that the Florida industry will see 1.1m boxes of tangelos this year and 4.5m boxes of tangerines. To mark the launch of the new season, Florida Citrus Mutual hosted a crop-estimate breakfast with 70 growers towards the end of 2011, joined by industry officials and elected representatives including state governor Rick Scott and agriculture commissioner Adam Putnam.
“What a great event we had to kick off the season,” Sparkes says. “We got some quality time with the governor in a grove. He was extremely responsive to our issues and promised to keep the lines of communication open between the industry and his office.” -
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