Source: US Global Legal Monitor
The following is a guest post from Courtney Wilson, an intern with the Creative Digital Publications Program of the Law Library of Congress. She is a graduate student studying Libraries and Information Science at Florida State University.
The orange is the state fruit of Florida. Orange juice is the state beverage. However, until just over 500 years ago, citrus trees would not have been seen in Florida. Citrus was brought to Florida by the Spanish as part of the Columbian Exchange. It is likely that early Spanish explorers were the first to plant orange trees in Florida, specifically, near the area that would become the city of St. Augustine. However, it would be another 300 years before the commercial growth of citrus in Florida.
After Florida became a U.S. territory in 1821 and the 27th U.S. state in 1845, attempts were made to grow citrus commercially, but the first citrus boom did not take place until the 1870s. This was fueled by the appearance of the East Coast Florida Railroad in the 1880s and 1890s. Unfortunately, after back-to-back freezes in 1894 and 1895 devastated entire harvests, growers replanted further south.
After recovering in the early 20th century, another prosperous period coincided with the Florida land boom of the early 1920s. Unfortunately, after a hurricane in 1926 ended this period of population growth, each passing year seemed to bring a new calamity for the citrus industry: a freeze in 1927, followed by another hurricane in 1928. Finally, an infestation of the Mediterranean fruit fly in 1929 paralyzed the industry for the duration of the Great Depression.
However, as with many other industries, World War II changed everything. Suddenly, farmers were guaranteed stable prices because all citrus products were requisitioned by the government. Concentrate, patented in 1948, was developed at the National Research Corporation as a way for soldiers to increase their vitamin C intake. This facilitated the development of companies like Minute Maid.
The 1940s and 1950s were times of significant expansion for the citrus industry, although the years between 1945 and 1960 saw a shift from individual farms to corporations and conglomerates as the main source of concentrate, as demand increased 120%.
In the 1960s, the citrus industry continued to boom, with new developments in agriculture and the establishment of organizations like the Florida Citrus Packers and the Florida Department of Citrus.
In the 1970s, the appearance of Disney World in Orange County and the subsequent exponential growth of Orlando’s population resulted in land previously used for citrus cultivation being used for theme parks, housing, and highways. In the 1980s, the entire state experienced multiple freezes in the 1980s that further damaged the industry.
The current threat to the Florida citrus industry, which has previously decreased American production of other fruits like the blackcurrant berry, is disease. Legislative efforts, like the Citrus Disease Research and Development Trust Act of 2010 and Citrus Disease Research and Development Trust Fund Act of 2011, are continually being introduced to try to appropriate funds for research into the ongoing problem of greening, a citrus bacterial infection. Greening is addressed in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) (7 CFR §301.76-1), and mentions of citrus disease, transport, and other regulations can be found in historical editions of the CFR.
At the federal level, citrus is regulated by executive agencies. Current standards set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration include Juice Guidance Documents and Regulatory Information. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture lists the Conditions of Movement of Regulated Citrus Articles, including 2012 updates on regulations for “establishing a regulated area for citrus greening” in Texas and limiting the interstate movement of fruit harvested from such areas. Recent orders from 2024 show similar prohibitions on the movement of citrus fruit. An interactive web map displays the quarantine boundaries of infected citrus, notably affecting the southern United States. Setting the filter to show “Citrus Greening (Huanglongbing) Federal Quarantine” shows that the entirety of Florida is subject to the regulation, as well as Mississippi and Georgia.
Today, land once used for agriculture is more valuable for development. As land and real estate prices in Florida continue to climb, the orange trees and packing plants continue to fall. Between 2024 and 2025, all citrus production experienced a 28% decrease.
In the meantime, the Florida Department of Citrus continues to advocate for the state’s citrus industry as an executive agency. From their web page, you can meet local growers from across the state, peruse recipes, and follow the work of their administrators, the Florida Citrus Commission. Vintage citrus labels have also been the subject of multiple exhibits, including at the Museum of Florida History and the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science. Meanwhile, the U.S. imports tangerines and mandarins increasingly each year, with 555,000 metric tons expected as of early 2026, primarily from Chile and Peru.
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