Orange growers in Florida are harvesting their smallest crop in almost 90 years due to a crop freeze, two hurricanes, and a citrus disease, reports The Wall Street Journal. These combined disasters have slashed supply and pushed up prices for product derivatives, like orange juice.
This year’s crop is expected to be less than half the size of last year’s poor crop yield, and 93 percent less than Florida’s peak output of 1998, according to data from the Agriculture Department. It also indicated that the fruit that the trees are bearing is smaller, reducing their juice output.
Juices at the supermarket, consequently, are gradually incorporating fruit imported from Brazil and Mexico.
At retail, not-from-concentrate prices are costing more than $10 a gallon, up over 20 percent since 2016, according to futures market specialist Judy Ganes.
“It’s like liquid gold,” she said. “Prices are justified to be high, yet that also limits demand.”
A freeze last January damaged the budding orange trees. In September, Hurricane Ian, touched down near Fort Myers, uprooting flora across the middle of the state. Two months later, Hurricane Nicole hit Florida’s Atlantic Coast and barreled north up the peninsula. Full Story (Subscription Required)
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