Recent hurricanes cause Florida citrus production to fall as farms work through damage

Florida oranges are harder to come by after recent hurricanes impacted production at farms across the state.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts the state’s citrus season, which runs from October to June on average, will be worse than last year.

Florida is expected to produce 12 million 90-pound boxes of oranges from 2024 to 2025, according to the USDA. That number is down by nearly six million boxes after 17.96 million were produced during the 2023 to 2024 season.

Matthew Schorner, the general manager of Al’s Family Farms, said his farm was struck by tornadoes during Hurricane Milton in October.

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“It may have been twenty tornadoes. Who knows how many popped up in that giant black cloud,” Schorner said.

Al’s Family Farms has been shipping citrus across the country for nearly five decades. They box up fruit in a packaging building that had survived dozens of hurricanes, until Hurricane Milton.

“It’s amazing to see how many hurricanes this building endured, and then it was all just crushed,” Schorner said. “I looked at it and I was like wow. I couldn’t believe it – I’m in tears – I can’t believe it. What am I going to do? Then I slowed down and prayed, and then I felt God told me to ask to rebuild.”

About two weeks after the storm hit, the farm was able to start packaging fruit in their building again.

The hurricane damaged some of the farm’s trees and caused them to lose some of their crop, Schorner said, adding that the peach grove had some trees pulled out of the ground after it was hit by a tornado.

They have been relying on partnerships and friends in the industry to help get them through while they rebuild.

“We are always the ones that grow, picks, packs and ships. We are there through the whole process. We may not be able to do 100% of the work, but we are able to make it happen through friends, family and other businesses who come in and work alongside of us,” Schorner said.

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The farm’s owner, Jeff Schorner, said the holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year for them.

“This is our main season. We have about six weeks of ‘let’s go, go, go’ packing fruit for Christmas,” Jeff said. “We’re a winter business, this is when all the tourists come to see us, so we had to get it up and running.”

CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual Matt Joyner said it may take a while for farms to get back to normal.

“These are a tree crop. They don’t recover in one year, it is usually about three years before they get back to pre-storm production. To have this many hurricanes hitting over the last seven years is impactful for growers because they don’t have a chance for those groves to recover and trees get back to peak production,” Joyner said.

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The poor citrus season could also lead to higher prices on citrus products, Joyner said.

Florida’s citrus production numbers may be worse than last year after recent hurricanes damaged farms, forcing them to rebuild during peak production times.