BARTOW, Fla. \u2013 A report issued Tuesday by the\u00a0National Agricultural Statistics Service<\/a>\u00a0of the U.S. Department of Agriculture matched the orange and grapefruit predictions from the January forecast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\u00a0February forecast (PDF)<\/a>\u00a0kept\u00a0Florida Orange production at 103 million boxes and Florida Grapefruit production at 15 million boxes for the 2014-15 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cToday\u2019s forecast reflects the continued dedication and hard work of Florida Citrus growers,\u201d said Doug Ackerman, executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus. \u201cHowever, the battle against citrus greening is far from over. Further investments in research are needed to defeat this disease and protect the amazing industry so many have worked to build.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year\u2019s federal\u00a0Farm Bill<\/a>\u00a0included $125 million for greening research, and Adam Putnam, Florida\u2019s Commissioner of Agriculture, recently announced a request for\u00a0$18 million from the state budget<\/a>\u00a0to further support the battle against greening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The FDOC planned its budget for the current season on an initial estimate of 100 million boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About the Florida Department of Citrus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Florida Department of Citrus is an executive agency of Florida government charged with the marketing, research and regulation of the Florida citrus industry.\u00a0 Its activities are funded by a tax paid by growers on each box of citrus that moves through commercial channels.\u00a0 The industry employs nearly 62,000 people, provides an annual economic impact of nearly $10.7\u00a0billion to the state, and contributes hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues that help support Florida\u2019s schools, roads and health care services. For more information about the Florida Department of Citrus, please visit\u00a0FloridaCitrus.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The latest forecast kept Florida Oranges at 103 million boxes, Florida Grapefruit at 15 million boxes. BARTOW, Fla. \u2013 A report issued Tuesday by the\u00a0National Agricultural Statistics Service\u00a0of the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":623,"template":"","fdoc_news_item_category":[],"fdoc_citrus_type":[],"fdoc_health_category":[],"class_list":["post-4193","fdoc-news-item","type-fdoc-news-item","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.floridacitrus.org\/grower\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fdoc-news-item\/4193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.floridacitrus.org\/grower\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fdoc-news-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.floridacitrus.org\/grower\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/fdoc-news-item"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.floridacitrus.org\/grower\/fr\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.floridacitrus.org\/grower\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"fdoc_news_item_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.floridacitrus.org\/grower\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fdoc_news_item_category?post=4193"},{"taxonomy":"fdoc_citrus_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.floridacitrus.org\/grower\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fdoc_citrus_type?post=4193"},{"taxonomy":"fdoc_health_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.floridacitrus.org\/grower\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fdoc_health_category?post=4193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}