Citrus farmers build war chest to fight disease

Issue Date: October 14, 2009

By Dennis Pollock

Seeking to keep at bay a disease that could cripple the billion-dollar-plus California citrus business, farmers are expected to start generating a war chest to fight the disease and the insect that carries it.

In its first year, the disease prevention program would raise $1.7 million by levying a penny-per-carton assessment that would start with the harvest of oranges, lemons and other citrus fruit this fall. A California Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Committee would also be created to oversee the program as part of Assembly Bill 281 by Assembly Member Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles.

Within two years, assessments could be hiked to between 5 cents and 7 cents per carton, said Joel Nelsen, president of California Citrus Mutual in Exeter. The assessment would be capped at 9 cents. A nickel would raise $8.5 million, he said.

Gov. Schwarzenegger signed the bill on Sunday.

Speaking before a crowd of more than 100 at a citrus workshop in Tulare last week, Nelsen described the ravages of citrus greening in Florida caused by a disease called huanglongbing, which is carried by the Asian citrus psyllid—an insect no bigger than an aphid.

During visits to Florida, he said, he saw red ribbons tied to citrus trees doomed by the greening disease.

"I visited a research station that made the (Kearney Agricultural Center in Parlier) look small, but it was like a ghost town," Nelsen said. "People told me, 'We plant a tree and wait for it to die.'"

More than 200,000 acres have been destroyed or abandoned in Florida because of the disease, he said.

Nelsen told how he watched young trees being snapped at the root with a machine that moved quickly through the groves. He clapped his hand to mimic the sound, repeating the clap to show the speed of the snapping of the trees.

"It was like Pac-Man," he said.

Other machinery engulfed larger trees, sending oranges, wood and juice flying.

"We've tried to identify steps we should take so that we do not make the mistake that Florida did, which was to ignore the threat," Nelsen said.

He said he was grudgingly won over to the notion of a privately funded effort.

"It didn't seem right at first; it would be like writing a check for a firefighter when they show up at the fire before a hose is used," he said. "But we have to help ourselves, we can't rely on others. We need a pool of dollars."

He said funding for pest exclusion in California has dropped from $94 million to $65 million.

"Furlough Fridays and other fiscal issues are problematic," he said. "We can't depend annually on a mixed-up Legislature."

While there has been government assistance—about $5.8 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a figure that could triple this year—it has not been enough to sustain pest exclusion efforts.

"Those efforts have exploded in the past three months with intensified trapping, going from five to 25 traps per square mile," he said.

The threat has become more ominous with discovery of psyllids in various urban areas in close proximity to the state's citrus growing regions, including finds in Fresno, which neighbors Tulare County, where navel oranges alone are a $415 million crop.

Hundreds of backyards in Los Angeles County are now infested with the psyllid, Nelsen said.

"Simultaneously we're looking at Imperial County, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino, and there was a significant find in Orange County," he said.

"The California Department of Food and Agriculture budget for detection and survey work will be exhausted within the first month of the fiscal year," Nelsen said.

The new panel created by the legislation will have 14 producers of citrus fruit, two citrus nursery operators and one public member to be appointed by the state secretary of food and agriculture. It will develop a statewide, citrus-specific pest and disease work plan.

"I know it will be controversial in the minds of some," Nelsen said. "There may be a producer who does not want to treat for the disease, but all producers will have to take actions to eradicate the pest."

Three years after the program is in effect, Nelsen said, a grower referendum could be held to decide if it is effective. Keeping it alive will require what he termed a "super majority, at least 55 percent support."

Nelsen said it was decided not to mount a grower referendum at the outset because of the cost, which he said could amount to $25,000. There was also a need to move quickly, requiring the bill to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

"I thought the 1990 freeze was the most difficult challenge our industry has faced," Nelsen said. "This is worse than that."

Ed Lorenzi, a Visalia citrus grower and farm manager for Sun Pacific in Kern and Tulare counties, said he believes the assessment and creation of the panel are needed.

"We can't rely on government money, we have to help ourselves," he said.

As to opposition for the program, he said he expects little of that within the citrus business itself, although "we grew up in the 1960s and questioned everybody and everything."

"This is a big, scary monster," Lorenzi said. "These psyllids are so small they can float in the wind."

And there are some people, he added, who are bringing infested plant materials into the state from abroad.

So far, of the Asian citrus psyllids detected in California, none has tested positive for the citrus greening disease.

(Dennis Pollock is a reporter in Fresno. He may be contacted at agcompollock@yahoo.com.)

Permission for use is granted, however, credit must be made to the California Farm Bureau Federation when reprinting this item. Top