A tiny insect is wiping out Florida orange groves and causing juice prices to soar
Orange juice drinkers face a fresh squeeze.
Orange juice futures – agreements to buy orange juice at a specific future date – are soaring in price due to growing concerns over pest damage across orange producers in Florida.
Citrus greening – a bacteria spread by the Asian citrus psyllid bug that causes fruit to shrink and eventually kills the tree – this week led the US Department of Agriculture to slash its estimates of orange production. It now estimates that just 74m boxes of oranges will be produced this season, down from its prediction of 80m at the beginning of October. A box weighs 90 pounds.
The poor harvest would mark Florida’s worst in half a century.
Orange juice for January delivery rose as much as 6.7 per cent to $1.5905 a pound in New York before ending the day at $1.53.65 – the highest since December last year. The futures were below $1.10 just six weeks ago.
The Florida Department of Citrus recently warned that the state’s production could fall to just 27m boxes by 2026.