FRUIT Orange growers face low demand with Florida's largest crop to date

A bumper crop of oranges may mean falling juice prices.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- Florida orange growers will produce their largest crop ever this season, an unwelcome prospect for an industry struggling with low prices and declining demand, agricultural forecasters said Friday.
The Florida Agricultural Statistics Service predicted Florida growers would produce 252 million boxes of oranges during the 2003-04 season, an almost 25 percent increase over last season's 203 million boxes. Each box holds about 90 pounds of oranges.
Florida is the nation's largest producer of oranges and second in the world behind Brazil. Florida-produced fruit and juice account for almost 70 percent of the orange sales in the United States.
Large crops of oranges often follow smaller crops. The previous record high will have been 244 million boxes during the 1997-98 season.
Orange market
The excellent bloom and well-timed rains contributed to this season's expected large size, said Bob Crawford, executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus, the quasi-public agency that markets the state's crop.
"Growers are going to have more boxes to sell," Crawford said. "It's certainly going to be a challenge to move this much orange juice."
The state's growers have faced more than a decade of sliding prices, especially for oranges headed for juice processors. As recently as the 1988-89 season, growers earned on average $7.40 a box for processed oranges. During the 2001-2002 season, the most recent year figures are available, growers earned $3.08 a box for processed oranges.
Consumer consumption also has slid. Last year, 1.4 billion gallons of orange juice were consumed in the United States, down from 1.48 billion gallons during the previous year. In 2000, 1.59 billion gallons were consumed in the United States.