Orange juice lovers will be sad at this piece of news: orange juice prices are about to go up quite a bit due to citrus greening disease which is hitting Florida orange trees hard. If the disease is as bad as feared, it will substantially reduce output from the second largest citrus-producing source. Brazil is the primary producer of oranges worldwide.
Orange juice may rise to $1.25 a pound, Geld said today in an interview in Sao Paulo. Futures for January delivery rose 1.6 percent to $1.1725 on ICE Futures U.S. in New York today.
"The citrus greening situation in Florida is very serious and is likely to fuel prices in the next six to 18 months," Geld said. Rising global demand will also contribute to price increases, he said.
The orange harvest in Florida runs from Oct. 1 through January. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Oct. 9 that Florida's crop will be 136 million boxes, down from 162.4 million boxes collected a year earlier.
Greening is a bacterial disease that reduces the yield from orange trees and in some cases kills the tree altogether.
kills orange trees and reduces The bacterial disease known as greening can
