State, feds must step up greening war

In a visit last week to Lakeland, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson offered encouragement to beleaguered citrus growers who’ve watched harvests wither by 40 percent in the last decade. “I would tell growers to keep hope alive,” he told The Ledger. The former astronaut couched his heartening words against the insidious reality that citrus greening disease continues to squeeze Florida’s citrus industry out of existence. To hear others like state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam tell it, even a whiff of optimism seems spaced out.

“Florida’s citrus industry is in a fight for its life,” Putnam recently declared. In what might well be a first for a politician, it’s a remark ominously not drenched in hyperbole.

Following a troubling trend, the U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this month issued an orange-harvest forecast that may have caused Anita Bryant to sob. The report predicted a yield nearly 17 million boxes shy of last year’s growing season’s haul of 96.8 million. That drop to about 80 million boxes of oranges anticipates the lowest output since 1964-65, when growers collected 82.4 million boxes.

The drop is even more precipitous compared to Florida’s peak output. For the 1997-98 growing season, growers reaped 244 million boxes.

It’s a loss Florida can no longer stand to bear. The loss of oranges — as iconic of Florida as sunshine, gators and mouse ears. The loss of more than 40,000 jobs in Central Florida and nearly 76,000 overall supported by citrus. And the loss of a nearly $9 billion annual economic impact generated by Florida citrus.

It’s a loss that Florida lawmakers — and Uncle Sam — must guard against by any reasonable means necessary. The first arrow drawn from the quiver has to be more funding. Putnam — before this year’s legislative session — lobbied lawmakers to beef up support to salvage Florida citrus. He requested $18 million. The Legislature ponied up only $8 million, which still doubled the previous year’s allocation. Yet, it was pathetically paltry, considering the University of Florida estimates citrus greening has caused the loss of $3.6 billion in state revenues since 2007.

It’s why Putnam rightly is pushing state lawmakers to fold another $8.5 million into next year’s budget for citrus greening research — part of $18.7 million he’s seeking for the citrus cause. Neither can Uncle Sam fiddle while Florida’s signature crop burns. A $125 million citrus research trust fund approved in 2014 finances citrus greening research over a five-year stretch. That’s appropriate and sorely needed. Problem is, while Florida is America’s top orange juice producer, the plague isn’t just a Sunshine State problem. Texas is lousy with citrus greening, and California too has the bug. Those developments make it imperative to step up federal funding to ensure a cure for citrus greening in the short term, not the long term.

“If we don’t get a handle on this within five years,” Joe Ahrens, former head of the Florida Citrus Council, told WFTS-TV/ABC Action News earlier this month, “the crop’s gonna be gone.” An unimaginable tragedy. All because of the Asian citrus psyllid, about as long as an eyelash, which settled in Florida in 2005 and has lashed the state’s citrus acreage ever since. In feeding on citrus leaves, it transmits the deadly bacterial disease, Huanglongbing, which results in deformed, bitter fruit, and ultimately kills the infected tree.

Cures — fungi, natural predators, genetic modifications and more — might be in the pipeline. Yet, Ahrens and others worry that by the time a cure trickles out it may be too late.

This is why the Environmental Protection Agency must help citrus growers buy time by approving two bactericides currently permitted for peach and apple growers. A thumbs-up could allow citrus growers to punch the psyllid with oxytetracycline and streptomycin treatments by spring.

As Putnam put it, “The health of Florida citrus is important to every Floridian — not just those who depend on it for their livelihoods.”

State and federal officials must go all in, committing all available resources to battling citrus greening — if Florida has any hope in the future of still being known for orange juice, not Tang.