Orange Juice
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Orange Groves Attacked By Citrus Greening, A Not Curable Ailment
Citrus groves in Florida are facing a threat worse than freezing temperatures. A not curable bacterium has been attacking these trees. The bacteria, known as Huanglongbing, citrus greening, or HIB, are carried by insects. The disease is killing between 1 and 3 percent of the FL citrus fruit trees each year.
Seeing juice oranges hit by incurable germs
There are two major citrus fruit growing areas within the United States - CA and Florida. In Florida, juice oranges are mostly grown. When it comes to eating oranges, those come from California. The incurable bacterium threatens citrus groves in Florida right now, causing sour, deformed, dry fruit. The tree that has infected fruit ends up dying due to the citrus fruit greening ailment. There is normally a one to three percent die off rate for citrus while now, a three to five percent die off rate is being seen in citrus fruit groves. This is in addition to the bad juice orange harvests from freezing temperatures.
Only way to protect citrus fruit grove is with a not curable bacteria cure
A group of researchers from over 12 nations had a conference at the first of the year to discuss citrus fruit greening. One group of researchers has started studying the citrus genome of 2 trees particularly susceptible to the not curable germs. There are diseases in nature like this all the time. They are either contained or sometimes die off on their own. An insect can carry the disease and in days will kill a whole grove of trees. This is because citrus fruit groves, along with most agriculture fields, are grown as monoculture.
The danger of the "citrus delay"
Young trees are killed by the not curable bacteria which are why citrus fruit groves are in danger. It takes seven years for a citrus tree to become fully mature. Still, it will not even start showing fruit until at least three to five years. Farmers effortlessly lose a decade of investment with the Huanglongbing. This is because trees that are young are typically attacked. Genetic lines are attacked as well. That means creating a new breed of tree that is resistant is out of the question.
Articles cited
WLTX
wltx.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=118394
How does commodity/futures trading with orange juice work?
I am confused on the trading of orange juice, or frozen orange juice. I know speculators are there to just trade with no intention with taking delivery. However are large orange juice companies/manufacturers purchasing orange juice? I ask because i may work on a paper that revolves around the the commodity market bringing foods such as oj to areas like where i live (durango,co) year round. Where we have no citrus trees at all, but we constantly have shelves stocked with oj. So is the commodity market responsible for making this juice available year round?
If you have some free time, I recommend watching Wall Street Warriors (Its on Hulu.com). There's one individual in the show that trades on the orange juice floor in NYC.
To answer your question, yes. Representatives of large companies buy a spot on the floor and look to buy up tranches of orange juice at the lowest price. Let's say Hurricane Bobby is approaching the coast of Florida - a company will want to lock in orange juice now while prices are lower and before supply is cut.
I'm not really sure if any of this helps. I'll see if I can find some other resources for you.
Odd Future - Orange Juice (OFWGKTA)
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