How little brown bugs have pushed Florida’s iconic citrus industry to the brink

Brothers Glenn and Mark Beck are fourth-generation farmers and have children who are willing and ready to become the fifth to farm the family’s land, which stretches across six counties, including citrus groves in Orange, Lake and Osceola.

But the Beck family’s legacy, like that of growers across the state, faces a formidable foe in the form of speckled brown bugs that pose a greater threat to Florida’s trademark citrus crops than hurricanes, freezes, tornadoes and droughts ever have.

Huanglongbing (HLB), or citrus greening, grips groves across the globe and is ravaging crops in Florida. The disease is caused by bugs chomping on citrus tree leaves and infecting them with an illness that erodes the fruit beyond repair. As production hits a new low, growers are scrambling for relief.

“Citrus greening is, by far, to the citrus industry in Florida and to us, it is the most devastating thing that has ever come along,” Glenn Beck said. “You could take all of the other problems that we have encountered and combine them, and they would not come close to adding up to the impact that greening has been.”

Beck, whose great-grandfather started a farm in central Florida that has since become Beck Brothers Citrus Inc., said they’ve been forced to surrender more than 2,000 acres of groves. Even though they also grow blueberries and raise cattle, they haven’t given up on their citrus.

“We’re using a little different growing techniques, different fertilization and nutritional plans and things like that that are helping us cope,” he said. “Whether we can continue to hang on utilizing those methods, that remains to be seen.”

Growers like the Becks who have diversified their crops will have a better chance at surviving, but those relying solely on citrus may have to vacate the industry entirely — if they haven’t already.

“We’re the lowest in production since World War II,” said Matt Joyner, the CEO of Citrus Mutual, Florida’s largest trade association that aims to ensure the well-being of growers.

For many, agriculture is more than a job. Citrus farming isn’t about maximizing revenue, Beck said — “it becomes a way of life.”

“We could opt out and turn everything into development,” he said. “But that’s not what we want to do. As long as we can keep doing this, we’ll keep doing it, and the industry has got us this far, we’ll stand by it.”

An incurable citrus sickness

It’s 7 a.m. on a weekday during the citrus season. John, Bill and Bobby Barben are at their barn in Highlands County discussing what needs to be accomplished that day. The tasks include grove maintenance like irrigation management and spraying fertilizer, and office duties like meetings and budgetary decisions.

“We all sort of do a little bit of everything,” John Barben said.

The Barben brothers’ great-grandfather founded the now 1,400-acre citrus terrain, Robert J Barben, Inc., in the 1920s, making them fourth-generation farmers.

John Barben said they also own a harvesting company, Barben Fruit Company, that buys citrus from other growers around the state. But all parts of the Barbens’ citrus productions have taken a hit.

“The whole industry, we’re looking at some tough times,” he said. “We’re battling the disease and trying to figure out how to survive.”

Citrus greening is not exclusive to Florida. The epidemic has infiltrated crops across the United States, and it first wormed its way into Florida in the early 2000s.

There is no cure.

While the disease poses no threat to humans or animals, once a citrus tree is infected, the fruits can become green, mangled, bitter and unsuitable for sale.

The sickness spreads through sap-sucking Asian citrus psyllid bugs that feast on the tree leaves, fueling their daunting 3-millimeter-long bodies. Once infected, the trees essentially starve to death.

Florida’s citrus industry supports about 33,000 jobs and creates an economic impact of almost $7 billion. Joyner said funds from the federal and state governments are supporting research efforts to either find a cure or create crops resistant to the disease.

“There’s a lot of things culturally that growers are able to do to help them be more productive in the face of greening,” he said. “But there’s no silver-bullet solution.”

Orange production is measured in terms of how many 90-pound boxes are filled at the end of the season, which goes from about December to May. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecasts that figure monthly, and for this season, the predictions were bleak.

In November, before the beginning of the season, the USDA forecasted 47 million boxes of oranges, which was an 11% decrease from the previous season’s final production. By July 12, the final forecast was determined to be 41 million boxes, which is a 23% decrease from last season’s production.

This is a stark contrast to the citrus production from about two decades ago. During the 2003-04 season, 242 million boxes were generated.

“We’re basically 100% infected with greening,” Joyner said.

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A race for Vitamin C

The hurdles caused by HLB haven’t hampered the market demand for citrus products, however.

Shelley Rossetter, who worked as the assistant director of global marketing for the Florida Department of Citrus, said the heightened awareness of health and hygiene spurred by COVID-19 also included a craving among consumers for more nutrients like vitamin C.

“Americans really took a renewed interest in orange juice and thought a little bit more about and remembered the ability of it to support a healthy immune system,” Rossetter said.

Orange juice sales are still higher now than they were before the pandemic, Rossetter said.

“It’s proving that those challenges are worth overcoming,” she said.

Rossetter says consumers should be aware that citrus growers and researchers are sparing no effort in the fight against this infection.

“When a price increase is seen at the grocery store, it’s not because growers are padding their pockets or increasing their business size,” she said.

Consumers can be particular about the origins of their orange juice, too.

“Florida name recognition on that label matters,” John Barben said. “We’ve got to figure out how to supply that market that we’ve developed.”

But as crops shrink across the state, Florida growers will only become more reliant on imports from countries like Brazil and Mexico to meet the domestic demand, which means the cartons of Florida-grown orange juice may shrink from grocery store shelves, too.

Increased imports also threaten smaller citrus communities because they can’t compete with the low production costs in other countries.

The smaller citrus growers along the spine of Florida are still a significant part of the citrus industry as a whole, Rossetter said, which keeps her hopeful for the future.

“I don’t think it’s [the citrus industry] ever going to go away,” she said.

“It’s been heartbreaking”

Millions of dollars are being poured into research to do one of two things, Bobby Barben said: change the bug or change the tree. Both have proven impossible so far.

“Not finding the answer is so frustrating,” Bobby Barben said. “Nothing we’ve really done has helped in the field much.”

In the recent Florida legislative session, a bill aimed at tackling the challenges faced by Florida citrus overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law in June.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Ben Albritton, R-Bartow, will implement tactics like improved fertilization-management practices, management practices research and the recommendation of nutrient application rates published by the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences for growers across the state.

UF IFAS will also curate a report that will be submitted to the governor and legislature each year after analyzing nutrient management in certain sites and developing a research plan and specific recommendations.

And on June 2, DeSantis signed Florida’s budget for 2022-2023, which allocates more than $37 million to support the state’s citrus industry.

Yet, even with the promise of new policy and government funds, the greening plague still looms as an ominous menace.

“It’s been heartbreaking to see what it’s done to the industry,” Bobby Barben said.

While his family’s agricultural empire is still profitable, Bobby Barben said the disease strains every part of the business.

“We’re having to downsize,” he said. “We don’t want to, but that’s the problem when you start getting smaller and smaller, things just don’t work economically like they used to.”

For growers with smaller plots of land, the pressure from citrus greening is even worse. Bobby Barben has watched in dismay as friends and clients go out of business, and even he and his brothers are abandoning some groves on their farm that can no longer carry their weight.

“We’ve literally been in business for over 100 years, and we’ve never had to do that before,” he said.

The Barben ranch, which also grows blueberries, is financially stable now. But that has not stopped John Barben from issuing warnings to his two teenage sons about preparing a career backup plan if the farm cannot survive into the fifth generation.

“I said, you can learn the citrus side, you can learn the management, but you need to go get a degree that you want to do in case we don’t make it here.”

ahasebroock@orlandosentinel.com