Business
Friday, August 30, 2013PUERTO Rico’s governor declared a state of emergency Tuesday and ordered the release of US$2 million to help agriculture officials fight a disease that has attacked citrus trees in the US territory.Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla said citrus greening has affected a large swath of the island’s citrus crop, located primarily in the central region. The island produces citrus including oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruits.Officials say the insect carrying the disease was spotted in Puerto Rico in 2001, but that actual signs of the disease were not discovered until 2009.The disease causes trees to produce green, disfigured and bitter fruits. Once a tree is infected, it dies in a couple years and cannot be saved.The disease has caused extensive damage in Jamaica and Florida as well.The Citrus Greening Disease has been threatening Jamaica’s $4-billion citrus industry since 2009. The Agriculture Ministry in 2011 ordered that all citrus nurseries be closed as part of efforts to tackle the disease, and joined with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in a project to reduce the impact on the Jamaican industry.Under the project, the FAO said it allocated close to $44 million of its technical resources to support the national response to citrus greening. The initiative was rolled out in sections of St Catherine and Clarendon, areas with high concentrations of small-scale citrus farmers. There are also plans in place to expand the project to citrus growing areas in other parishes such as St Mary, Trelawny, St James, Hanover, Manchester and St Elizabeth.The FAO reported in February that Jamaican farmers have been seeing improvements in the health of their plants, increased fruit yields and larger sized produce which they credit to the application of the citrus greening management practices that have been introduced under the joint project.— AP— Additional reporting by the Jamaica Observer
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Puerto Rico allocates US$2m to fight citrus disease
