Unite To Fight Against Greening

The level of concern growing over citrus greening was apparent in late December when USDA called a two-day closed-door summit to tackle the issue. Approximately 65 citrus industry representatives, researchers, and government regulators attended the event in Bethesda, MD.

Florida was well represented at the summit. Mike Sparks, executive VP/CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, Richard Kinney, executive director of the Florida Citrus Packers, Ricke Kresse and Mike Irey of Southern Gardens, and representatives from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services all were on hand to represent the state.

Cooperation And Commitment

According to David Kaplan, assistant deputy administrator of USDA’s Animal Health and Plant Inspection Service’s plant protection and quarantine program, the meeting was about bringing the citrus industry’s best minds together to share information on the real threat that greening poses. Kaplan also is director of the agency’s emergency and domestic programs.

“I believe we came away with a shared understanding that this is a significant problem and one that is bigger than a regulatory issue,” he says. “It will take everyone working together to improve the science base and ultimately end up with a system that will allow us to continue to produce citrus in this country.

“We are looking for improved coordination between federal and state governments, as well as the industry. In addition, we must have a commitment to resource the work necessary to address greening — not only from the government, but also from the industry.”

Information Dissemination

Kaplan notes the summit was not about gaining information, but more about sharing information. He says the task now is digesting all the information shared, putting it together in a report, and sharing it back with the meeting attendees.

“We’ll send the information back to those leaders and ask them to share it with their communities and get feedback from their citrus and nursery industry,” he says. “From these best thoughts, hopefully we can end up with something that looks like an integration plan for a national strategy on how we prepare for this problem, prevent it from spreading, respond when we have it, and how we might recover.”

According to Florida Citrus Mutual’s Mike Sparks, the summit was a good start in cooperative efforts to battle greening.

“Representatives from the regulatory agencies, research entities, and industry (California, Florida, and Texas) collectively agreed that citrus greening is a national issue that must be attacked through a cooperative approach,” he says. “This disease threatens the entire U.S. citrus industry. It is not just a Florida problem.

“A cooperative approach must be taken when looking for and securing funding. Citrus-producing states must work collectively to coordinate research efforts to avoid duplication and get to a solution as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

U.S. Citrus Council

Sparks met with citrus-state leaders in November as part of an organization called the U.S. Citrus Council.

“The USDA summit is the exact sort of cooperative effort we talked about the U.S. Citrus Council pursuing,” he says. “I believe the council is in a unique position to help serve as a facilitator, as we collectively move toward a solution to greening. All of the states involved are competitors on some level, but it sure was refreshing to see us collectively agree that greening is a threat to all of us and consequently we must cooperate to beat it.”