The thousands of oranges scattered on the ground by Hurricane Ian’s fierce winds are only the start of the disaster for citrus growers
ZOLFO SPRINGS, Fla. — — The thousands of oranges scattered on the ground bylike so many green and yellow marbles are only the start of the disaster for citrus grower Roy Petteway.
Citrus is big business in Florida, with more than 375,000 acres in the state devoted to oranges, grapefruit, tangerines and the like for an industry valued at more than $6 billion annually. Hurricane Ian hit the citrus groves hard, as well as the state's large cattle industry, dairy operations, vegetables like tomatoes and peppers, and even hundreds of thousands of bees essential to many growers.
Most Florida oranges are used to make juice, and this season’s drastically lower harvest, combined with the still-unquantified slam from Ian, will press prices upward and force producers to rely even more heavily on California and imported oranges from Latin America. “When you lose land, and what happens is people can't afford to keep doing this anymore, and that land is taken. It's gone,” the Republican senator said. “I've never seen a mall turned back into agricultural land.”The University of Florida estimates that about 380,000 known bee colonies were in the path of Hurricane Ian as it bisected the state.
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