Polk County IDA
Florida watermelon growers get far less notice than their counterparts in citrus and the rapidly expanding blueberry industries, but Florida has consistently ranked among the top three states in watermelon acreage for the past five decades. And for the past two decades, watermelon growers in…
Declining tax revenues and other hits mean the Florida Department of Citrus will spend $3.3 million less in the 2013-14 fiscal year, but its biggest program, orange juice marketing, emerged unscathed. Meanwhile, the Florida Citrus Commission approved going forward with one new OJ spot for the…
Executive Director Doug Ackerman has proposed a Florida Department of Citrus budget at $48.1 million, down 6.5 percent from the current $51.4 million budget, a $3.3 million decline. The budget proposal is based on commissioners' estimate of a 2013-14 citrus crop similar to this season’s…
The Coca-Cola Co. says it is spending $2 billion to support the planting of 25,000 acres of new orange groves in Florida, a move officials are lauding as a major investment in the Sunshine State's citrus industry. The announcement was made at a late-morning news conference…
Despite a second consecutive season of weather-induced production problems, Florida blueberry growers continue to ride the "blue wave." "The industry calls it the 'blue wave.' Production will continue to grow and we're seeing demand keeping up with production," said Kathy Blake, a spokeswoman for U.S. Highbush…
Florida citrus growers got some good news Tuesday, if their idea of good news is holding pre-harvest fruit losses in greening-infected groves to 30 percent. Such is the nature of good news in the final months of the 2012-13 Florida citrus season that has seen a…
Some 6,000 Polk County fourth-graders are learning about how food on their plates originated on local farms and ranches. The 25th annual Agri-Fest kicked off Monday and will run every weekday morning through March 22 at the Polk County Agricultural Center in Bartow. The annual event…
A standing-room-only crowd of more than 400 growers Wednesday at the Citrus Research and Education Center testified to the increasingly desperate search for new tools to control the deadly citrus greening disease sweeping across Florida. The growers came to the morning-long seminar to hear a summary…
The Scientific Research Department at the Florida Department of Citrus has rebranded itself to reflect a new mission focusing on monitoring orange juice quality and flavor that might be affected by citrus greening. The department's name is now the Center of Citrus Nutrition and Quality Research,…
The Florida Department of Citrus began the 2012-13 citrus season in October on an optimistic note, forecasting an end to more than a decade of U.S. orange juice sales declines. But an orange crop literally falling from the tree and persistently high retail OJ prices now…