Herald Tribune

US: Coming back to citrus

Deep inside the Wm. G. Roe & Sons packinghouse is a tall, good-looking young man who is among a dying breed in Florida. William G. Roe III graduated cum laude in economics from Amherst College in Massachusetts four years ago, then said heartfelt goodbyes to friends bound for New York. They were chasing dreams of riches in the world of investment banking. Roe came home, where his dreams lay waiting. "Growing up doing this I always kind of felt I'd come back here and join the family business," says the 26-year-old, called by his middle name "Gee" to differentiate him from other family members with similar names. "I guess I'm optimistic and feel that this will be a profitable business for years."



Ask many old-timers in the Florida citrus industry and they will tell you -- albeit sadly -- that there is no one in their youngest generation who wants the grove, or the packinghouse, or the roadside stand.

The citrus business is too risky, too boring, too hard.

Some of those children jetting off to become doctors, lawyers and teachers are leaving behind vast holdings of productive orange, grapefruit and tangerine groves.

Others leaving just don't want to deal with the disease, hurricanes and pests that have ravaged their family's land. During the housing boom they figured there was not much sense in doing anything other then selling out to one of the faceless developers who inquired about the property every week or so.

But not Gee. He was raised in the packinghouse. He played there as a child. He worked odd jobs in the place during summers between high school.

"I didn't have other offers because I didn't pursue them," Gee says as bright orange fruit spills from a nearby conveyor belt at the height of winter's tangerine-picking season.

"Citrus is in my blood."

The acres of Florida farmland dedicated to citrus groves have steadily declined. Development, disease, pests, hurricanes and global competition are squeezing growers out of the business.

There were nearly a million acres of Florida citrus in 1970. Nearly 40 percent of that is gone, forever.

This year the tally is 576,577 acres, the lowest total in the 42-year history of data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Much of that lost grove land now lies under subdivisions, strip malls or amusement parks.

About 16 million adult and nursery trees were destroyed as part of the state and federal government's failed attempt at controlling citrus canker.

Nurseries closed and scalped grove land was sold off -- sometimes because there were no nursery trees available to replace what had been destroyed.

Every one of the 30 Florida counties where citrus is grown have shared in the lost trees, the lost livelihoods, the lost traditions.

Gee is resigned to some of those realities.

"I think there will always be a Florida citrus industry, but it will be at least half as big as it is now."

At Amherst, Gee used his 6-foot, 5-inch frame to play offensive tackle for the Division III Lord Jeffs football team. He was not big enough or fast enough to go pro but wanted to keep at his favorite sport for as long as possible.

Now what keeps him busy are broken conveyor belts, burned-out motors and malfunctioning optical scanners.

They fill his days in the open-air packinghouse in Winter Haven where the Roe family specializes in fresh tangerines.

The sturdy, wooden building was built by the Seaboard Coast Lines in the early 1900s once the company realized it could make a killing shipping citrus by rail instead of by steamship.

The Amtrak train using that line today brings only people to and from the Sunshine State several noisy times each day.

A conference room and offices in the packinghouse serve as a family museum of sorts.

There is rare, leftover tissue paper used in the early 1900s to wrap each individual fruit to protect it during shipping.

There are packing labels from various Roe family citrus enterprises through the generations. The labels are framed behind glass.

So is the collection of box-tax stamps from the 1920s. They total from 5 cents for a tiny box to $9 for a container of 360 larger ones. Most are dated Nov. 29, 1902, in handwriting resembling a doctor's worst prescription-pad scribble.

Gee covers as much ground in a day as he ever did on the football field, running from the below-freezing storage cooler to the packing line then upstairs to the control house.

With fluent Spanish, he directs Wm. G. Roe & Sons' 120 employees, he solves problems, he helps out with the packing. Sweat drips from his brow even on this cool winter morning.

Gee wants to do a little bit of everything in his quest to master the intricacies of the fast-moving packinghouse.

"I always knew the family business," Gee says, pausing to say something to someone about getting an order to Wal-Mart on time. "But I've learned a lot more of the details since I started working here."

The tangerine is actually a mandarin orange.

Sometimes they are red, sometimes orange, but almost always smaller than the more common varieties of orange.

Pickers visit a tangerine grove twice, first in late November to nab the early-maturing fruit, then in late December to get the rest.

An acre of tangerine trees should produce at least 400 95-pound boxes of fruit (tangerines are measured in that arcane measurement, though other citrus are not: oranges are tallied in 90-pound boxes; grapefruit in 85-pound increments). An acre of orange trees typically produces up to 450 90-pound boxes.

The word "tangerine" comes from the port of Tangier in Morocco, from where it is believed the first batch of fruit was shipped to Europe.

Not just any member of the citrus family, the fruit has become an unusual part of pop culture, especially psychedelia.

"Picture yourself in a boat on a river, With tangerine trees and marmalade skies" starts John Lennon's 1967 Beatles classic "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

A year later, "Creme tangerine" are the first words of George Harrison's "White Album" ode to the chocolate addiction of his friend Eric Clapton. Remember "Savoy Truffle"?

"Tangerine," the seventh track of 1970's Led Zeppelin III, is a steel-guitar-laden country melody and the last song Jimmy Page wrote without input from lead singer Robert Plant.

Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group best known for movie soundtracks.

One was "Risky Business."

That sums up Gee's work pretty well.

The 2006-07 Florida tangerine harvest produced 4.6 million boxes worth $58.2 million. But box prices fell by half to $6.86 during the following season, so the harvest of nearly a million more boxes was worth less -- $37.8 million.

Tangerines are so sweet that they are often mixed by the Tropicanas and Minute Maids of the world with tarter orange juice, which may, by regulation, contain up to 10 percent tangerine and still be labeled "orange juice."

A tangerine peels more easily than an orange, especially the once-popular Dancy tangerine, which was also known as the "zipper skin."

The Dancy, soft and tender yet not grown anymore in large quantities, is highly prized for the oil that forms in its peel.

Gee can sell a 55-gallon drum for $17,500. The oil is used as a sweetener, in candles and cleaning products and aromatherapy treatments, and in candies and throat lozenges.

The tangerine is packed with vitamins, including C, B1, B2, B3, as well as beta-carotene, folate and magnesium.

Gee has some special advice about tangerines. He will share it with you if you spend enough time with him: Buy No. 2, or the cheaper, second-class tangerines. They may not look as nice, but they are just as tasty.

Fond childhood memories helped draw Gee back to the family business, 300 acres of tangerine and orange groves in addition to the packinghouse. He darted around both sites for days on end as a little kid.

"Dad would bring us to work and put us in the bins of No. 2 fruit," Gee says. "I was kind of babysat in the bins."

He is the latest in a long line of Roe family members continuing the family tradition. There is the original William G. Roe, Gee's great-grandfather; grandfather Willard; his father "Bill"; uncles Quinton and Morgan; and aunts Ellen and Martha.

"It seems like whenever we get together we talk about how the industry has changed in the last 20, 30, 40 years," Gee says. "I like hearing Dad, Uncle and Grandpa talking about this and that."

Gee is so far the only one of his generation to come back.

"None of the other grandchildren have really taken an interest in the company. But that could change," Gee says, indicating that he would welcome the help.

"In some people's minds this is a tough business, but I don't think it's a tough business because it's a family business."

He is convinced the citrus industry still has muscle, still has a way for him to earn a good living and perhaps someday pass the packing house on to his own children.

"I just grew up with it, and fell in love with it," Gee says, heading back to work with most of his 12-hour day still ahead of him.

"Returning home just seemed like the thing to do."


Source: heraldtribune.com


Publication date: 1/6/2009