Florida Orange Juice Celebrates Win

Haylie Shipp

First spotted in China in the early 1900s, citrus greening infects citrus trees of all kinds depleting them and making them unproductive. This is not new information for folks here in the southeast. But with this, just sets the stage for celebrating a win when we can get one.

That did happen recently with the United States and United Kingdom striking a trade accord. It’ll remove U.S. tariffs on British steel and aluminum. And, for the U.K., they’ll be removing retaliatory tariffs on a number of American exports including Florida orange juice. I spoke with Matt Joyner last week. He is the Florida Citrus Mutual Director of Governmental Affairs…

“While we’re excited about the resolution of this dispute and the lifting of the tariffs, I would think that in the short term at least with our decline in production we’re going to be doing everything we can to focus on supplying the domestic demand for Florida Orange juice.”

Combining citrus greening with a freeze this year in Florida, Matt says they’re expecting the smallest harvest since the 1940s.

“I don’t know in the nearterm that we’ll see our exports increase markedly to the U.K., but we think that that’s a prime market for our product.”

And he says that going forward, as they get production back up, they are excited about the opportunity.