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Who killed the Florida orange? (www.motherjones.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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Quiet fell over the room, which was neither full nor very loud to begin with, and the 2026 Florida Citrus Show began.

“It should be a great day,” began the event’s first speaker. “Rain should hold off today, even though we definitely need more rain.” No one laughed.

There was no need to say that things were bad. Everyone knew it. The mood wasn’t sour—citrus farmers could handle sour. It was something else. Postapocalyptic. Florida is in the midst of its worst drought in 25 years, but the dry spell actually ranked far down on the list of challenges these bedraggled growers were facing.

In 2003, the mighty Florida orange industry produced 242 million boxes of fruit, with 90 pounds of oranges per box, most of which went on to become orange juice. Now, not even 25 years later, the United States Department of Agriculture was forecasting a pitiful 12 million boxes of oranges, the least in more than 100 years, the worst year since last. A decline of more than 95 percent.

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4 comments in c/collapse@sopuli.xyz view that post
[–] 6 points 6 months ago (1 child)

I'm assuming it's the citrus greening disease. I'm not clicking the bait, but that has been rampant in recent years. One can assume whoever was working on it at the FDA got labeled as woke waste fraud and abuse and probably is no longer employed, so I can't imagine that's gotten any better in the last 2 years.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago*

    I'm assuming it's the citrus greening disease

    from the article, which is quite thorough IMO , indirectly it seems you were right but like what killed this pack a day smoker, cigarettes or lung cancer ?

    I think they killed it themselves, with chemicals. That’s a fact,” Gunther said. In my time in Florida, I’d found a more complicated story, but down here, everyone had their theories, their longing for citrus nirvana, and their anger at the loss.

    “They sprayed so much chemicals, the damn grass don’t even grow here anymore—you can quote me,” Gunther said. “I knew it back in 1990. I said, ‘They’re sprayin’ so much chemicals it’s gonna be the end.’ And it’s the end.”

    the argument seems to be they so weaked the trees by over application of chemicals, that a disease was inevitable.

    A warning take that will be ignored, like climate change.. we've emitted so much CO2e, we'll collapse civilization. You can offshore orange production but not civilization.

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    • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    I had noticed real orange juice was barely available anymore but I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten.

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    2 comments in c/florida@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    Not saying it would change much, but there has not been a governor of Florida that wasn't Republican since 1999. 2003 they produced 22 billion pounds of Oranges. 2026 they are unsure they can produce 1 billion pounds. That's with technoligical improvements for planting, harvesting, etc. So maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, but shouldnt the government step in, find a way to mandate getting rid of the diseased trees and the underlying causes and transplant something successful that would be immune if you can't remove the causes, like Italy and France did when they worked with California to transplant all their vineyards because they would all die from root rot until they found out the roots in California were immune, and grafted the grapes onto those roots and rebuilt everything?

    What is government for if an industry so large in your location that it is the default license plate is completely dying with "no known cure."

    Oranges from Florida have always been sweeter/juicer or whatever than those from California, while Californias are more shelf stable. But the reason you get orange juice made in Florida... Is for that reason. It tastes better. Maybe Florida should be telling the federal government if they want to launch rockets/shuttles from and retrieve them from their shores, they need the federal government to give a fuck about their issues.

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    [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    Diabetes did.

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