Posted on 03/15/2002 4:55:24 PM PST by Willie Green
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:50:06 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
VERO BEACH, Fla. -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration served a warrant on an Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. citrus processing plant but wouldn't publicly say why.
FDA spokeswoman Kimberly Rawlings said Friday that the investigation of the Vero Beach plant is ongoing and she could not discuss details. Rawlings, with the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said the warrant was served Thursday.
The plant manager referred calls to Ocean Spray headquarters in Lakeville-Middleboro, Mass.
Chris Phillips, a spokesman for the agricultural cooperative, said the company is cooperating with the FDA.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
I don't know why Jimmy Buffet songs run through my mind on an otherwise serious thread.
Citrus growers feel squeezed
Florida citrus growers are grappling with imports from Brazil and the ongoing battle over canker eradication as growers seek to protect their crops and homeowners want to keep their infected trees.
By Chris Kauffmann staff writer
March 13, 2002 -- Vero Beach Press-JournalFORT PIERCE Worried about being squeezed out of business by Brazilian orange juice imports, Florida's largest citrus growers' organization is stepping up its campaign to pressure the U.S. government to keep the existing tariff structure in place.
During an annual area meeting held at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Horticultural Research Center in Fort Pierce Tuesday, Florida Citrus Mutual officials urged growers to sign pro-tariff letters being sent to both of Florida's U.S. senators and Gov. Jeb Bush.
Andy LaVigne, executive vice president of the 11,500-member organization, told the two dozen local growers who attended the meeting that the tariff issue is the most important issue facing the industry this year.
If the tariff is lifted as Brazil wants, Florida growers could stand to lose as much as $500 an acre, which would put many growers out of business and endanger the state's second-largest industry after tourism, LaVigne said.
The primary reason is because the two main players in the world orange juice market are Florida and Brazil.
However, the difference between the two is that Brazil exports 99 percent of its product, while 90 percent of Florida's product is consumed domestically so if there is no tariff protection, Florida growers will lose out, citrus officials say. The tariff is currently the equivalent of 17 cents per gallon of ready-to-serve orange juice.
Although the Treasure Coast is known as the grapefruit capital of the world, area growers still have 100,000 acres of orange groves in addition to their grapefruit groves, so the tariff issue has considerable importance to them.
Apart from the tariff, the second-most important issue Florida Citrus Mutual will attack this year is citrus canker eradication, which is the major issue here because grapefruit is more susceptible to the disease than other varieties of citrus. Canker, though it poses no threat to humans, causes fruit to drop prematurely.
LaVigne noted that because of legal challenges to the eradication program by South Florida homeowners, it has had the effect of dragging it out and making the problem worse and far more costly.
However, he said, the cost to the industry if it decides to live with canker as those South Florida homeowners want would be $342 million a year.
As it is, he said the eradication program has cost nearly $500 million since canker was discovered in Miami in 1995, including about $75 million currently being sought this year for eradication and grower compensation.
The program wouldn't have been nearly as costly had the government done a better inspection job at its ports and airports and had it been aggressive when this canker outbreak was first found near Miami International Airport, LaVigne said. Had the government been aggressive right off, the cost would have been between $40 million and $50 million, he added.
The current canker outbreak is believed to have come from Brazil, which is riddled with the disease.
Although Tuesday's session was designed so LaVigne could get some feedback on the organization's objectives, few commented.
One who did was independent Vero Beach grower Bill Nicholas, who noted that since he planted his first grapefruit grove in Indian River County 40 years ago, I have never seen a time with less optimism in the grapefruit industry than there is today.
Nicholas also offered up this challenge to LaVigne, Tell those bureaucrats (at the Florida Department of Citrus) that if they don't do anything about grapefruit, there won't be any of us around to pay their salaries.
LaVigne replied that industry officials are well aware of the problems with grapefruit, which has long suffered from declining consumption and oversupply issues.
Perhaps some kind of Bush-brothers "grapefruit-gate" brewing?
(Purely wild speculation.)
Well, I'm certainly not familiar with the FDOC/FDA relationship.
But it wouldn't surprise me at all if the BIG Fla producers were also BIG Brazilian producers.
The antennae on my tin-foil hat are buzzing. It's awfully strange that immediately after setting steel tariffs (which Brazil opposes) that a sealed Fed search warrant is issued against a grapefruit farmers coop whose members are protesting discontinuation of citrus tariffs. (Once again, I'm not certain which growers influence Ocean Spray the most).
It certainly could be convoluted enough that I have the team rosters confused, but something stinks here!!!
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