A citrus industry representative is hopeful the state’s slump has “bottomed out” and is trending upward.
The July Florida orange production forecast released Friday rose from 12.2 million boxes forecast in April to 12.92 million in July, a 5.9% increase.
Florida grapefruit producers are forecast to pack 1.35 million boxes, an 8% boost over the 1.25 million-box forecast in April.
The 12.92-million box forecast for oranges for the season is an increase from last year, when Florida growers packed 12.28 million boxes. Two years ago, Florida packed more than 18 million boxes.
“Hopefully we’ve bottomed out and these higher numbers that we’re seeing this year are a new trajectory, a new trend upwards, as our groves continue to recover and we continue to get trees in the ground,” Matt Joyner, CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, an industry group, told the Phoenix.
Joyner said farmers felt “really good about our crop” early on in the season and were spared any hurricanes. Then, in early 2026, the state experienced freezing temperatures. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson estimated those freezes could drop agricultural production by $3 billion across citrus, tomato, strawberry, watermelon, sugarcane, greenhouse plants, and additional crops.
The freeze caused “significant losses,” Joyner said.
Still, despite estimated 30-50% losses in some cases, “we were still seeing harvests in those same blocks that were outperforming the year before, so it really validated what we thought going into the season, which was that we had a nice crop.”
The freezes happened Dec. 30-Jan. 1 and Jan 26-Feb. 4, as 66 of 67 counties in the state experienced multiple hours of freezing temperatures.
With the legislative session concluded, Senate President Ben Albritton, an orange farming Republican from Wauchula, will surrender his gavel following the November elections.
Following passage of the 2026-2027 budget, Albritton said he had overseen appropriation of more than $320 million for research field trials and infrastructure during his two-year presidency under his “Make Citrus Great Again” agenda. For the current year budget, lawmakers approved $160 million for large-scale field trials.
“I applaud the policymakers, our supporters in Tallahassee, not just what they’ve done for citrus, which has been tremendous … but frankly for their recognition, the importance of production agriculture to the state of Florida and for our nation,” Joyner said.
Government investment in research “is starting to yield fruit, quite literally,” Joyner said.
Hurricanes, real estate development, and citrus greening contributed to a 95% citrus industry decline in Florida over the past 20 years. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Florida farmers produced nearly 300 million boxes of citrus in 2004. By 2025, harvests yielded about 14.5 million boxes.
“It took decades, two decades of greening and decline, along with these storms, have really impacted this industry, so it’s going to take some time to dig ourselves out of this hole, but we’re hoping we’ve bottomed out and are moving upwards,” Joyner said.
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