Just a matter of time before it affects all of the commercially significant citrus producing states I suppose. Sure hope we can research our way out of this one!

http://www.theledger.com/article/20120124/NEWS/120129665?Title=Study-Citrus-Greening-Cost-State-3-6-Billion-6-600-Jobs

Study: Citrus Greening Cost State $3.6 Billion, 6,600 Jobs
University of Florida study says disease's impact includes 6,611 lost jobs.



By Kevin Bouffard
THE LEDGER
Published: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:31 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:31 p.m.

LAKELAND | A University of Florida study has determined citrus greening, a deadly bacterial disease, has cost the state's economy $3.6 billion over five years, including 6,611 lost jobs in agriculture and related industries.

The study by two UF economists is the first comprehensive assessment of the disease's economic effects on Florida, said Jack Payne, the university's senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources, in a press statement.

"Growers are the people most obviously impacted, but the study demonstrates that many other Floridians are hurt as well — when fewer oranges are harvested, there are fewer dollars circulating in our state's economy," Payne said.

The study by Tom Spreen and Alan Hodges of the Food and Resource Economics Department in Gainesville looked at greening's impact from the 2006-07 through the 2010-11 citrus seasons. It looked at not only direct losses to Florida citrus businesses but also the impact on other economic sectors.

The study period began one year after greening was first discovered near Homestead in September 2005. The disease, which causes misshapen, sour fruit unfit for consumption and eventually kills the tree, had spread across the entire citrus-growing region within three years.

At the Second International Research Conference on Huanglongbing in January 2011, researchers estimated greening had already infected about 18 percent of Florida's citrus trees, estimated at 70.6 million trees last year. The disease is called "huanglongbing" in China, thought to be the country of origin.

A "solid but rough" estimate of the current infection rate would be at least 25 percent, said Timothy Schubert, administrator of the Plant Pathology Section at the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in Gainesville.

"There's no way to know for certain; there's not enough testing to verify that (estimate)," Schubert said.

Testing every symptomatic tree to confirm greening would be expensive and unnecessary because most commercial growers are already managing their groves to control the disease's spread, he said.

Without greening, which destroyed tens of thousands of commercial grove acres, Florida growers would have produced 951 million boxes of oranges during those five seasons, the study reported. Instead, they produced 734 million boxes, a 23 percent decline.

Orange juice production, where 95 percent of the annual crop goes, fell from an estimated 6.3 billion gallons without greening to the actual 4.6 billion gallons. Because of supply shortages, juice processors paid Florida growers between 14 percent and 35 percent more for their oranges during that time.

"Although prices rise under the lower supply conditions in the (with-greening) scenario, this does not completely offset the lower production volumes," the study said.

Employment in the state's agriculture sector of course took the biggest loss, more than 3,000 fewer jobs, or 48 percent of the total 6,611 lost, the study calculated. But the $3.6 billion revenue loss also affected government employment (521 lost jobs, or 7.9 percent of the total), health and social services (482 jobs, or 7.3 percent) and retail trade (453 jobs, or 6.8 percent).

The job losses represented a 0.07 percent decline in the total Florida work force in 2010.

The study did not address economic impact from losses to grapefruit, tangerines or fresh oranges.

Marty McKenna, a Lake Wales grower and chairman of the Florida Citrus Commission, said the study points to the need for more state and federal money for scientific research on ways to control the disease.

"I will deliver that message to Tallahassee for sure," he said.

Polk County leads the state's citrus-producing counties with 82,577 grove acres and 9.9 million trees in 2011, according to USDA data. It historically leads the state in citrus production, as it did in the 2010-11 season, with 29.8 million boxes. It ranked No. 1 in orange, tangerine and tangelo production and third in grapefruit.

[ Kevin Bouffard can be reached at kevin.bouffard@theledger.com or at 863-422-6800. Read more on Florida citrus on his Facebook page, Florida Citrus Witness, http://bit.ly/baxWuU. ]