Florida citrus will no longer exist

[ImStillMags Mags]

Florida's iconic citrus industry is on the brink of total collapse.

Production has plummeted by a staggering 95%.

The Sunshine State’s orange industry is facing an existential crisis that has seen production crash from 225 million boxes to just 12 million in a single generation. The primary culprit is "citrus greening," a relentless bacterial disease spread by the Asian citrus psyllid insect.

This incurable plague starves trees of nutrients, resulting in bitter, misshapen fruit and eventual tree death. What was once the backbone of Florida’s agricultural identity is now struggling to survive a biological onslaught that has proven nearly impossible to contain.

Compounding the disease is a "perfect storm" of climate-driven disasters. Increasingly violent hurricanes have leveled expensive protective structures and stripped groves bare, leaving many growers financially ruined. With costs soaring to $45,000 per acre for protective screening, many farmers are choosing to sell their ancestral lands to real estate developers, permanently replacing historic orchards with suburban sprawl. As Brazil now commands 70% of the global market, the race to engineer disease-resistant trees may be a final, desperate attempt to save a legacy that is rapidly fading from the American landscape.

source: NPR. (2024). Florida farmers

[plainolamerican]

California oranges are highly plentiful, with the state producing roughly three times the volume of oranges as Florida.

[Lobo]

Agricultural monocultures are dangerous, economically and environmentally. As the South -- "The Land of Cotton" -- learned to its dismay in the 1920s, when the boll weevil destroyed the industry.

Fortunately, in that case, the insect infestation actually saved the region, as cotton had been depleting and destroying the soil. It made it economically possible to diversify farming with more soil-friendly crops. In fact, the town of Enterprise, Alabama even erected a statue monument to the bug,

And there was a "Boll Weevil Song" that became a hit by Brooke Benton back in the 60s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKAobL4O8LI

Let me tell ya a story about a boll weevil
Now, some of you may not know, but a boll weevil is an insect.
And he's foundmostly where cotton grows.
Now, where he comes from, hm, nobody really knows.
But this is the way the story goes.

The farmer said to the boll weevil
"I see you're on the square"
Boll weevil said to the farmer
"Say yep! My whole darn family's here"

The farmer said to the boll weevil
"Say, why do you pick my farm?"
The weevil just laughed at the farmer 'n' said "
We ain't gonna do ya much harm"

ho-o-o-o-o, -o-o-o, -o-o-o, o-o-ome"
And the boll weevil spotted a lightning bug.
He said "Hey, I'd like to make a trade with
you. But, ya see if I was a lightning bug,
I'd search the whole night through"
Searchin' for a home, I'd have me plenty of home"
And the boll weevil called the farmer, 'n' he said
"Ya better sell your old machines,
'cause when I'm through with your cotton,
heh, you can't even buy gasoline." I'M gonnaBR
stake me a home, gotta have a home

And the boll weevil said to the farmer, said
"Farmer, I'd like to wish you well."
Farmer said to the boll weevil,
"Yeah, an' I wish that you were in ****"
LOOKIN' for a
home, lookin' for a home
(Ahh, you have a home all right, )
you have a home
(A real hot home, ahhh)

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Clyde Lovern Otis / Brook Benton / Public Oeuvre Domaine

The Boll Weevil Song lyrics © The Clyde Otis Music Grou

[BEZARK]

It’s hard to imagine that there are not various resistant tress where greening comes from.

Useful for breeding.

[BEZARK]

CA oranges mostly for eating

FL oranges mostly for juicing.

[BEZARK]

They might well find a cure in GMO.

A gene splice prevented the worst disease of Bartlett pears.

But replacing millions of bearing trees remains a vast real problem.

Insurmountable really.