Political Lobbying A Priority For Citrus Achievement Award Winner
August 1, 2012 
This Q&A is the second of six installments featuring Florida Grower’s 2012 Citrus Achievement Award winner, Vic Story, addressing important issues of the day. This month, the president of Lake Wales-based The Story Companies discusses the importance of political lobbying.
Q: How important is it for the citrus industry to keep close ties with lawmakers on the state and federal level?
A: In my two years as president of Florida Citrus Mutual and before that as a board member, I traveled to Washington, D.C., several times a year to meet and talk to senators and members of the House about citrus issues. We have to keep our relationships strong with our congressmen and women. They appreciate you coming up and are always glad to see someone from home. We have spent a lot of time taking our elected representatives and staff folks out into grove situations and showing them exactly what we are talking about. This gives them firsthand ideas about the pest and disease issues we are fighting.
Q: How well has Gov. Rick Scott come to know Florida citrus in his first term?
A: I believe our relationship with Gov. Scott is a perfect example of someone we’ve had an opportunity to work with and get to know and help have a better understanding of our industry. When he was running for office, he came to Mutual’s conference in Bonita Springs. He really didn’t know any of the leadership there and he was quick in and quick out. But, over the next year, we had the chance to visit with him on several occasions and he appointed some of the members of the Citrus Commission. Since then, we’ve had him attend one of our annual acreage estimate breakfasts where we got him in a grove to see the effects of greening. He’s attended a work day over on the East Coast to get a better understanding of our labor situation. Through all of this, he has a much better understanding of what we are about and our needs. In fact, this year, $2 million in state funds were allocated to citrus disease research, which Gov. Scott signed into law. The year before, he vetoed those funds. I have to believe our work with him has had some influence on his decision to preserve research funding.
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