Peter McClure Discusses Greening Research Dollars

In November, Florida citrus growers will be voting on a research tax to shift dollars toward the battle on greening and other disease.Citrus Achievement Award winner Peter McClure is the chairman of the “box tax” council and explains why this vote is important.

Peter McClure: “This year, the marketing order will direct our funds to the new Citrus Research and Development Foundation instead of the Florida Citrus Production Research Advisory Council (FCPRAC) Box Tax Council. The marketing order will be for a maximum of 3¢ instead of 1¢. This new Foundation will absorb all of the research review and approval tasks performed over the last 17 years by our Box Tax Council, but the Foundation also will have the additional responsibility to get research results transferred from the lab into the hands of the growers as soon as possible. To do that, the Foundation will have to perform product development, commercialization, and regulatory advocacy functions, and also negotiate and hold intellectual property rights on behalf of the citrus industry. Our Box Tax Council determined that these additional tasks were imperative in our battle against greening and canker, and that FCPRAC wasn’t able to perform those tasks. Getting research discoveries from the lab to the grove is a very complex endeavor and will take a large, sustained effort.

The research infrastructure in Florida does not currently have that capability. There are some missing parts that make it impossible to accomplish within a short time frame. The new Foundation is designed to bridge those structural gaps. It won’t be inexpensive to do this, but it is necessary. The FCPRAC Box Tax Council voted unanimously to transfer its mission to the Foundation. We voted ourselves out of a job because getting the research results hooked up to a tractor with alacrity is vital to the survival of this industry. The Foundation will do that work on our behalf.