Florida citrus growers expressed optimism as the recent growing season topped the forecasts and ended slightly ahead of the production from the prior season.
While still close to historic lows for an industry that once dominated the citrus juice market, on Friday the U.S. Department of Agriculture increased the orange production by nearly 6 percent from an April forecast, putting it a little more than 5 percent above the 2024-2025 growing season.
Grapefruit production was moved up 8 percent from April and almost 4 percent from the prior season. Meanwhile, specialty crops, primarily tangerines and tangelos, ended 2 percent higher than the April outlook and 15 percent more than the 2024-2025 crop.
“By and large, we really feel like we're shaping up to continue that momentum we were seeing last season, and how these therapies and newer varieties and other things are translating into the resurgence and rebuilding of this industry,” said Florida Citrus Mutual Executive Vice President and CEO Matt Joyner.
A big part of the optimism comes as state legislators have invested more than $320 million in the past two fiscal years into the industry, which has faced a variety of pressures: hurricanes, winter freezes, encroaching development, changing drinking habits and the ravages of a deadly bacterial disease called huanglongbing. Better known as citrus greening, the disease starves the roots, results in bitter, misshapen fruit, and eventually kills the tree.
Joyner also credited growers who have stuck it out for more than two decades amid the statewide reduction in land used for citrus and as the state lost its industry dominance over Texas and California.
“We've never stopped being the economic engine for rural communities throughout this state, where frankly, there's not a whole lot else going on, even development,” Joyner said. “This is a critical industry. I don't think you can go do this anywhere else in the country as well as you can do it in Florida.”
The budget for the current fiscal year recently signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis included $160 million for citrus research and field trials, $20 million for citrus nursery and packing equipment grants and $15 million for marketing efforts by the Department of Citrus.
When the Legislature approved the budget on May 29, Senate President Ben Albritton, a citrus grower from Wauchula, declared “Florida citrus is not going down on my watch.”
“Florida citrus is making a comeback, one tree at a time,” Albritton stated. “This heritage industry is not only vital to our state’s economy, but it is truly a part of our DNA.”
A release from the governor’s office when the budget was signed on June 29 also highlighted $425 million in the spending plan for conservation easements, which allow farmers and ranchers to continue operations in exchange for blocking development on their land.
Reeling from a series of hurricanes that made landfall on Florida’s west coast in 2023 and 2024, overall production in 2024-2025 was the lowest in more than a century.
The numbers out Friday from the USDA show the industry producing enough oranges to fill 12.92 million industry-standard 90-pound boxes. Grapefruit came in this season at 1.35 million boxes and the specialty crops landed at 460,000 boxes.
Five seasons earlier, the industry grew enough oranges to fill 41.2 million boxes. In the 1995-1996 season, production was at 203 million boxes.
Five seasons ago, grapefruit was at 3.33 million boxes, and three decades ago the number was 52.35 million boxes. Thirty years ago tangerines and tangelos were at 9.725 million boxes. The number fell to 750,000 in the 2021-2022 season.
The USDA report also put lemon production in Florida at 900,000 boxes, the same as in the April forecast. The number is also up from 670,000 boxes in the 2024-2025 growing season, the first year lemons were given their own listing.
