Between hurricanes, freezes and disease, Florida producers have seen some difficult times, and their orange production continues to be slashed.
According to the USDA’s latest World Supply & Demand Estimates report, they sliced another 2% off its previous forecast. The predicted 43.5 million boxes would be 18% below last season’s crop, but those surveys were done just before a big freeze hit orange groves at the end of January.
“We don’t know exactly what the full impact may have been on the citrus crops yet on this point, so impact isn’t necessarily fully reflected in the report today, but just as a reminder, we will be looking at the forecast for the next citrus crops on the March production report, and so we’ll just see what type of new information we have by then and go from there.”
Florida citrus farmers were already on pace to harvest the smallest orange crop since WWII.
Related:
Freeze concerns for Florida’s specialty crops
U.S. orange production could be down this season
Deep freeze devastates Texas citrus