The leadership of industry body Florida Citrus Mutual has endorsed federal legislation that is intended to help the state's US$9bn citrus industry battle against invasive pests and diseases.
According to the group, the new bill would divert a portion of the federal tariff on imported citrus products to finance the Citrus Disease Research and Development Trust Fund, with money distributed by a nine-strong board comprised of representatives from citrus producing US states including Florida, California, Arizona and Texas.
The measure, which has been sponsored by Florida senator Bill Nelson, has received broad support from the domestic citrus industry.
'We are in the fight of our lives,' said Michael Sparks, executive vice-president and chief executive officer at Florida Citrus Mutual. 'This will certainly give us a leg up in protecting an essential US industry.'
The past four years has seen over US$39m committed to researching citrus greening disease and its vector, the Asian citrus psyllid, which can be found in all 32 of Florida's commercial citrus producing counties and is a major threat to the future of the industry.
'Over the next few months, the domestic citrus industry will be aggressively communicating the importance of this bill to members of congress,' Mr Sparks added.
Last week, the US Department of Agriculture issued its final Florida orange forecast for the 2009/10 season, with the crop remaining stable at 133.6m boxes.
Final grapefruit estimations pegged the Florida crop at 20.3m boxes, a jump of 100,000 boxes on previous predictions.
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