Reports coming out of Havana claim that Hurricane Ike destroyed more than 135,000 tonnes of citrus when it rocked Cuba last week.
As FPJ went to press last week, the industry was unable to make direct contact with many growers. But Cuban agriculture minister Maria del Carmen Perez has since said that the citrus industry suffered sever losses as the country was battered by the hurricane.
Perez said the crop was the hardest hit by the hurricane, suffering more losses than the country’s other key crops of bananas and tobacco. It followed earlier damage by Hurricane Gustav, which devastated the citrus harvest on Juventud island, one of Cuba's main plantation areas.
Citrus yields in the Caribbean's largest island had already dropped by 50 per cent in the past decade.
Between them, Hurricanes Gustav and Ike have wreaked about $5 billion (£2.8bn) of damage on the island, the Cuban government said.
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