Paul Miller, chairman of the Citrus Growers' Association. - File John Myers, Business Reporter
Jamaica's Citrus Growers Association (CGA), a co-operative of farmers, has a billion dollar plan to boost fruit production, but says its implementation is contingent on government's largesse.
"Our proposal for the resuscitation and replanting was about US$23 million (J$1.56b) to US$24 million (J$1.63b)," CGA chairman Paul Miller told the Financial Gleaner.
"However, that was before the price hike in fertiliser, so it is higher."
Fertiliser prices average $2,000 per bag, but range up to $4,000. The price is moving up as countries plant bigger acreages as feedstock for ethanol and commodity exports to expanding economies.
Other input prices for the programme have also increased, but not significantly, Miller added.
The growers plan to produce an additional 450,000 boxes of citrus to complement the 3.8 million boxes that they currently output, to take advantage in the downturn in production in traditional citrus growing areas of the United States.
The current marketing opportunities demand more than what Jamaica can produce, but local growers, said Miller, could build export earnings to $4.5 billion, if growers were to boost supplies to the U.S.
The sharp downturn in the citrus cropsin Florida and California especially has created a huge market for concentrates in the US. Frozen orange concentrate was trading early Thursday at US$1.56 per pound.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast that citrus production would peak at 135 million boxes for the 2006/07 crop, a 44 per cent decline due to the effects of unusually cold weather, hurricanes and diseases.
Brazil is the world's largest citrus producer with about 400 million boxes annually, but with increasing pressure to grow sugar cane for ethanol production, there are expectations that orchards might be converted to cane in a few years.
Agriculture and Lands Minister, Roger Clarke, had announced a plan in his budget presentation to Parliament two weeks ago to resuscitate some 3,750 hectares of citrus and plant a further 2,000 hectares to boost production.
The national budget has a $3.3 billion allocation to orchard and horticultural crops on its Capital A accounts, and a $1 million inclusion for a Caribbean Development Bank funded citrus replanting programme.
Digit interest rates
The document was not specific on how the $3.3 billion would be spent, but Clarke has announced that $2.5 billion be made available in loans to the farming sector at single digit interest rates through the Development Bank of Jamaica and the Ex/Im Bank, two state financing agencies.
Miller said on Wednesday that the details of the plan have not yet been fine-tuned.
A meeting has been arranged with Clarke in the week ahead to work out how existing acreages would be resuscitated and the additional citrus to be planted, he said.
The threat of diseases in recent years - mainly by the tristeza virus which almost wiped out the industry - has caused a sharp downturn in production.
According to figures from the Agriculture Ministry, production fell from 183,184.3 tonnes in 1999 to a low of 136,738.3 tonnes in 2002, but rose slightly to just over 140,000 tonnes in 2003.
More recent figures cited by Miller last October indicate there was a further decline to under 126,000 tonnes in 2005, with the CGA chairman saying then that with the right extension support, Jamaica could produce 150,000 to 190,000 tonnes per year to claim parity with Caricom partner Belize.
"There are probably another 9,000 acres (3,642.17 hectares) whose decline in production can't reasonably be attributed to tristeza itself, but really the fear of tristeza which immobilised farmers," said Miller.
"The reduction in yield has been caused by more of a lack of attention because they felt that the (trees) are going to die shortly anyway."
The CGA has proposed that government distribute plants to small farmers free or at minimal cost and assist them with loans to offset the cost of fertiliser and other inputs to facilitate the resuscitation of the industry.
"The Government has in fact distributed about $8.1 million worth of plants to small farmers along those lines so we feel fairly confident that our general proposal has been accepted," Miller said.
Clarke, in his presentation to Parliament last week said more than 1,000 hectares of citrus were resuscitated under the almost five year old Tristeza rehabilitation programme which comes to an end this month.
The majority of 600 hectares were done under a US$20 million CDB financed programme designed to rescue the industry from the deadly virus, and another 480 hectares done without government's assistance.
"We are saying that we can probably get twice the yield from existing acreages if in fact farmers were to do it properly, so the resuscitation programme is designed to get such acreages back up to speed," Miller said.
john.myers@gleanerjm.com
