I. Identification
1. The Issue
Oranges did not originate in Flordia, but for the last 500 years, they have grown there and developed into a unique and expandsive industry. It is said that the soil, cliamte and process of producing Florida oranges is distinct. The product has a status as a geographic indication. It is also major supplier of oranges and orange products to the world.
2. Description
By law, each sailor on a Spanish ship headed for the Americas carried 100
seeds with him; later young trees were used instead. Ponce de Leon took citrus
seeds to Florida in 1513 and instructed his sailors to plant seeds wherever
they landed.
The earliest commercial groves developed in St. Augustine and DeSoto due to
easy access to water transportation. Commercial groves were confined to the
coasts until the 19th century since water was the only means of transportation.
Jesse Fish, a New Yorker, was one of the first, having started growing oranges
before the Revolutionary War on an island off St. Augustine, Florida. There
was a severe Florida freeze in 1835, decimating most of the St. Augustine groves,
where most of the citrus was grown. Many trees recovered, and more were planted.
He was shipping oranges to London in 1776, and is supposed to have been the
first of the orange barons.
Douglas Dummitt, from New Haven, Conn., is credited with starting the grove
in 1830 that provided the foundation for the justly famed "Indian River"
citrus.
When railroads gave easy access to central Florida in the early 1800s, citrus
growers slowly established groves on the well-drained, ideal soil of the Ridge,
a more highly elevated series of hills that runs down the center of Florida
for 300 miles. The Ridge also received a good amount of rainfall, when in combination
with its soil and drainage, made it ideal for the cultivation of oranges. Most
of the growers moved in the 1880s.
Eban B. Bean came to Florida in 1875, set up shop in Palatka, and introduced
a standardized method for citrus handling and packing techniques, as well as
designing a uniform box for them. The farming cooperatives began about this
time, when there was an orange surplus, and farmers banded together to try to
better market their product. The USDA initiated a systematic breeding program
in Florida in 1893.
Twin killer frosts struck again in December 1894 and February 1895, destroying
the northern groves. Before the freeze, Florida shipped 5 million boxes of citrus,
after, it shipped only 147,000. Though most of the state's trees were damaged,
the ones in the Indian River and Ridge areas recovered slowly until they again
reached substantial commercial importance a decade later, in 1910.
The Florida Citrus Exchange formed in the same year, and later became the Florida
Citrus Commission. The FCE began advertising campaigns, built national and international
sales organizations, sponsored pest control programs, worked out transportation
problems, formed the Growers and Shippers League, and originated federal control
of citrus shipments under a marketing agreement (which didn't work out due to
"meddling in Washington").
The University of Florida and California both have invested a fair amount of
time and money in improving the sweet orange crops. The industry is a tough
one to enter and remain in since, "citrus breeding requires long-term commitment
and few institutions have given it sustained support."