Yesterday, the Florida Citrus Commission has approved a preliminary 2021-22 operating budget for the Florida Department of Citrus of $29.12 million.
The Department’s total preliminary budget reflects a 50 percent budget increase of $9.75 million over the previous season. This is largely due to an increase in general revenue funding from the State of Florida for marketing. The majority of the budget will fund domestic marketing programs aimed at driving sales of Florida Orange Juice. The total domestic marketing budget for OJ is more than $18 million.
The budget includes $5 million in recurring general revenue funding plus an additional $12 million from the state’s Citrus Recovery Program to support domestic marketing programs. It also includes $500,000 in recurring general revenue funds for research.
On top of this, the Department will receive $3.54 million in Foreign Agricultural Service Market Access Program funds from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to be used on international programs as well as have a carryover of $108,067 in previously unspent Agricultural Trade Promotion (ATP) funds to be used on Fresh Orange programs in Canada.
The budget is based on a conservative estimate of 50 million boxes of oranges and 4.2 million boxes of grapefruit, and 900,000 specialty boxes of citrus.
Source: floridacitrus.org