Florida citrus shippers fear USDA quarantine

Florida citrus shippers fear USDA quarantine

Florida citrus farmers and shippers are worried the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA) may impose a statewide canker quarantine on citrus fruits, meaning no Florida-grown could be shipped to key markets like Texas or California.

   According to an Associated Press report Sunday, Florida Department of Agriculture officials will travel to Washington, D.C. next week to try to dissuade the USDA from imposing the statewide quarantine. The canker causes blemishes on the skin of citrus fruits and causes the fruit to drop early from trees.

   The federal government in January eliminated funding for a limited quarantine program, claiming the efforts to eliminate canker were hopeless, the AP report said.

   Under that program, Florida set up a quarantine area within a 3,800-foot radius of a canker discovery, or an area of roughly 500 acres in a commercial grove.

   No fruit from a quarantined area could be shipped to another citrus producing state, although fruit could be shipped to a non-citrus state if it showed no symptoms of a canker infection. The fruit from a quarantined area can also be sold to a processor, but cannot be shipped as fresh fruit and sold in stores'which provides the highest profit margin for fruit shippers.

   Florida officials hope to persuade the federal government to okay a program that calls for grove inspections 60 days before harvest and stricter sanitary procedures from Florida citrus packinghouses.