Price of Orange Juice Skyrockets With Citrus Shortage

Dec. 4, 2006 — -- Bad news in Florida's orange groves is translating into bad news at breakfast tables across the country.

Thanks to hurricanes in the last two years, trees have been destroyed and there are far fewer oranges per tree.

Eighty percent of the orange juice Americans drink comes from Florida, so when the Florida crop suffers, the pain is felt coast to coast.

Right now, the price for a gallon of orange juice is up 14 percent over last year.

Jack Wilson and Jim Reeves have almost 60 years of combined experience growing oranges. They've seen tough times, but they say these last years have been really tough.

"They're not producing fruit the way they should, and it's going to take a while for them to come back," Reeves said.

The orange groves started souring in 2004, when hurricanes Charley, Frances and Jeanne made direct hits on Florida's orange belt, destroying acres of groves and blowing oranges off the trees.

Then last year there was Hurricane Wilma, delivering a late-season wallop.

"The trees went under shock. Not only did it tear some of the limbs off, but it also upset the roots," Wilson said.

Compounded by problems with crop disease, the 2006 crop is expected to be the smallest in 17 years.

In the 1980s, the industry was crippled by a series of frosts.

An even bigger threat looms today: not the weather, but land development, as weary growers sell to home builders.

"The large numbers of people moving to Florida have increased the competition for land between development for housing and land for citrus," said L. Gene Albrigo, professor of horticulture at the University of Florida.

Reeves says he's seen that happen all around him.

"The farmers have kinda given up," he said. "They can get more for the land in 10 years than they can produce fruit in 10 years."

The longer term danger of problems with the orange groves is that the Unites States will have to start importing more of its orange juice from Brazil, meaning higher prices and fewer U.S. jobs.