Hurricane Ian’s impact on the citrus industry

The estimate for losses in citrus, fruits and vegetables to Florida’s agriculture industry from Hurricane Ian is $900 million.

From a distance, it can be hard to see the damage done to the orange groves, but up close, you can see trees tipped on their side, fruit scattered on the ground, and a new barn that was left in shambles.

More than a month after Ian, its impact is still very visible in one Arcadia orange grove.

“We suffered physical damage to the groves and in some tree losses and a lot of trees that we’re having to stand back up and, and in building losses. But our worst damage came from the fruit loss, the impacts on a crop that we were hoping to harvest this year,” said Ron Mahan, vice president and CFO of Tamiami Citrus.

One of his four groves stretches from Hardee County down to Immokalee.

The damage to each varied. Immokalee lost 20% of its Valencia oranges, others more.

“Certain varieties of oranges, we lost 40 to 50% of the fruit. One variety of our oranges, we think it’s probably more like 65 to 70%,” said Mahan.

The fruit loss has worsened in the last several weeks as damaged stems continue to drop fruit.

At Hog Island, Mahan says they got 20 inches of rain.

At a grove where they are growing what’s called crunchy tangerine, a special fruit they were supposed to harvest this season, had a 90% loss with fruit still littering the ground under the trees.

“That cumulative stresses on the tree just impact that long-term performance. So Hurricane Ian hits this year for citrus grower, and that grower is going to feel those impacts for 2-3 years even,” said Christina Morton, director of communications for the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association. “We do expect to see some reduction in yield for certain crops, but really, the extent will be unknown until we get full-time into harvest.”

Now farmers are on guard once again. “Certainly, growers are watching yet again another tropical system that will potentially impact some of our growing regions in the state,” said Morton.

“We’re hoping that we don’t experience any more heavy wind events like that. We do know we’re gonna get some rain out of it,” said Mahan.

Mahan also knows that they will bounce back.

The state says preliminary numbers for the entire agriculture industry from Ian total nearly $1.9 billion. That includes losses in crops, agriculture production, and infrastructure.