In this installment of the ‘Agronometrics In Charts’ series, Sarah Ilyas studies the factors causing orange quantities to dwindle, mainly in Florida. Each week the series looks at a different horticultural commodity, focusing on a specific origin or topic visualizing the market factors that are driving change.

The US citrus industry is beset with several challenges this season.  Disruptions in supply chain, scarcity of labor and hefty raw material costs have been straining the industry for a while now; new regulatory challenges have recently begun to overexert the industry.

According to the USDA crop production report published in January, the U.S. all orange forecast for the 2021-22 season is up 2% from the previous forecast but down 11% from the 2020-21 final utilization. The slump in citrus volumes have caused prices to jump.

The second week of February saw orange prices in the vicinity of $ 21.11 per package, a 16 percent increase compared to last season. Prices for tangerines were recorded at $ 29.58 per package, a 17 percent hike compared to the last season, while clementines saw prices around $ 32 per package, a 34 percent increase compared to last season. 

Oranges, Tangerines & Clementines Prices in the US

(Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics. Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

As shown in the graph below, the price recorded for clementines in week 5 this season was $32 per package, which is about a 50 percent increase compared to the price of  $21 per package recorded in week 5 of 2019.

(Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics. Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

The graph below shows the variations in prices for Tangerines over the course of the last five years; the price recorded for tangerines in week 5 this season was $29.58 per package, which is about a 17 percent increase compared to the price of $25.15 per package recorded in week 5 of 2021.

(Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics. Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

The price recorded for oranges in week 5 this season was $23.96 per package according to the graph below, which is about a 46 percent increase compared to the lowest price of  $16.40 per package corresponding to this segment of the season in 2020.

(Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics. Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

According to the USDA crop production report, Florida’s forecast for  2021/22 MY orange crop is at 44.5 million boxes, a decline of 16% year-on-year. The last time the state produced so few boxes was during the 1944-45 growing season, when Florida recorded a yield of 42.3 million boxes of oranges.

This forecast, if realized, would be the lowest harvest since 1945. California’s orange crop in this case would be larger than Florida’s for the first time, as California's forecast is at more than 47 million boxes this season.The shortfall in Florida is mainly due to  an escalation in fruit droppage caused by citrus greening and inclement weather.

The US orange market continues to be impacted by citrus greening; this irremediable disease is spread by an insect, the Asian citrus psyllid, which was first discovered in Florida in 2005. Trees that are damaged by citrus greening produce stunted, more bitter-tasting fruit. "Greening is the most difficult disease to ever impact citrus," says Mike Sparks, the executive director of Florida Citrus Mutual.

Citrus greening poses increased supply risks in Florida, the top orange producing state in the US, which is the chief contributor to the scant supply estimate for the 2021/22 season. While USDA is doling out due disaster assistance to growers, the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is vouching for nutrient rich treatments to incur defense responses within the plants.

Scant supplies combined with spiking input costs  are expected to raise orange juice prices in Q1 2022. According to the NY Post, since the start of the year, the price of orange juice has increased 5.26%, or $7.70 per pound. A surplus of crops in Brazil and Mexico will aid in offsetting the domestic shortage of oranges this season. Until then, however, orange juice prices could skyrocket.

In our ‘In Charts’ series, we work to tell some of the stories that are moving the industry. Feel free to take a look at the other articles by clicking here.

All pricing for domestic US produce represents the spot market at Shipping Point (i.e. packing house/climate controlled warehouse, etc.). For imported fruit, the pricing data represents the spot market at Port of Entry.

You can keep track of the markets daily through Agronometrics, a data visualization tool built to help the industry make sense of the huge amounts of data that professionals need to access to make informed decisions. If you found the information and the charts from this article useful, feel free to visit us at www.agronometrics.com where you can easily access these same graphs, or explore the other 21 commodities we currently track.