TALLAHASSEE --- Florida's once-dominant citrus industry is being squeezed for land at an accelerating rate.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week reported that the industry is entering the 2025-2026 growing season with 208,183 acres in use for producing oranges, grapefruit and specialty fruits, 24 percent fewer acres than a year ago.
That follows a 17 percent reduction in acreage heading into the 2024-2025 season, which was the worst for production in a century. Since 2020, the land is down 75 percent, according to USDA figures.
During the past 25 years, the industry has been hammered by deadly citrus greening disease, hurricanes and development pressure. In that time, production of oranges has dropped 94 percent and grapefruit is down 97 percent.
Matt Joyner, executive vice president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, said the federal report matches what the industry is experiencing.
“Certainly we need some good weather years. There's no doubt about that,” Joyner said. “We cannot continue to have hurricane on top of hurricane every season and continue to move forward in any measurable manner.”
The decline in acres for growing citrus appears to be accelerating.
In 2020, the industry lost 11,149 acres. The next year, another 12,104 acres disappeared. In 2022, the figure jumped to 32,046 acres. In 2023, the total leaped to 43,046 acres, followed by 57,551 acres before the start of the 2024-2025 season and 66,522 acres over the past year.
Joyner said the industry won’t again be the “behemoth” that occupied nearly 1 million acres a quarter-century ago. But with additional state support, pushed by Senate President Ben Albritton, a citrus grower from Wauchula, he said the industry can thrive as a “normal commodity,” using “new production practices that are going to, we think, ultimately, yield more per acre, be more efficient.”
“There's some exciting things in this transition period, like there always is in transition periods with industries, but we're convinced that there's a future for this industry in the state of Florida,” Joyner said.
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Orange production now uses 183,860 acres. Last year, growers used 248,208 acres. Heading into the 2015-2016 season, orange production was at 441,628 acres. Heading into the 2000-2001 season, it was at 665,529 acres.
In January, a large grower, Alico, Inc., announced it would “wind down” citrus operations to focus on more-profitable uses of its land. The company said it would not spend additional money on citrus operations after the 2024-2025 crop was harvested, with another 3,460 acres of its citrus land managed by other operators through 2026.
“We successfully completed our final major citrus harvest during the third quarter, marking a significant milestone in our strategic transformation to become a diversified land company,” Alico President and Chief Executive Officer John Kiernan said in an August quarterly financial report. “This harvest concludes the majority of our capital-intensive citrus production operations, allowing us to focus our resources on our long-term land development and diversified usage strategy.”
Alico, in part, is moving forward with a development project, known as Corkscrew Grove Villages in northwest Collier County, on the border with Lee and Hendry counties, according to the August financial report.
But state officials say they haven’t given up on the industry.
Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson said that while many factors affecting citrus are beyond the government’s direct control, his Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has taken several steps to help growers.
“People are just now beginning to realize the true value of citrus --- and the farmers who grow it are just as valuable,” Simpson said in a statement.
Simpson pointed to $250 million in state money for the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program, which is used to purchase conservation easements that allow property owners to continue agricultural production while limiting development. Also, the department has extended a window for actively farmed land --- including citrus groves ---- to retain a favorable agricultural tax classification by up to 10 years, giving growers more time to recover from setbacks and to avoid land conversion driven by tax issues.
The state budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year, which began July 1, includes $124.5 million for the citrus industry. That includes $100 million for new disease-resistant trees, grove management, therapeutic tools and rehabilitating existing trees.
Florida growers got some good news heading into the 2025-2026 season, as the Canadian government lifted retaliatory tariffs on certain U.S. products that included oranges and orange juice.
On Tuesday, meanwhile, the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, or UF/IFAS, suggested some citrus growers have already started to plant bamboo as an alternative crop.
“Bamboo is a good alternative crop to diversify beyond citrus,” Michael Rogers, director of UF/IFAS’ Citrus Research and Education Center said in a statement. “The clumping bamboos grow well in Florida, can be grown on existing grove land and there is demand for the product.”