http://www.csrees.usda.gov/newsroom/news/technology/news0003.html
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Mechanical harvesting key to future of Florida's $9 billion citrus industry
News From
Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
University of Florida
By Chuck Woods
IMMOKALEE, FLA.---As the Florida citrus industry ramps up its winter harvesting season -- picking a record 252 million boxes of oranges over the next six months -- a small but growing number of producers are beginning to use mechanical harvesters that allow one person to collect more than 90 boxes per hour.
The new tree-shaking harvesting systems are nine times more efficient than picking oranges by hand and will help the state's $9 billion citrus industry compete with low-cost producers such as Brazil, according to researchers with the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. "In today's global citrus market, necessity has become the mother of invention," said Fritz Roka, an associate professor of food and resource economics at UF's Southwest Florida Research and Education Center in Immokalee, who is studying the economic aspects of mechanical harvesting.
"With higher labor costs in Florida and strong competition from low-cost producers such as Brazil, mechanical harvesting is becoming a necessity on the state's 600,000 acres of processed oranges," Roka said.
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