The decline in Florida’s citrus crop continues.
According to a collection of annual reports, released Aug. 29 by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Florida’s total citrus acreage declined 24% this year compared to last. Total production is down 28% across all classes of citrus. While lemons were added to Florida’s production this past year, some counties saw staggering losses.
According to the annual Florida Commercial Citrus Inventory report, the state had 208,183 total acres of citrus for the 2024-25 year, representing roughly 32,538,800 trees. This is down 24% compared to the 2024 annual report, with a net loss of 66,522 acres, representing about 42,131,500 trees.
The 2024-25 acreage numbers are less than a quarter of what they were in 2000 (832,275 acres) when the survey data began.
By variety, orange acres took the largest hit, both proportionally and in raw acreage. At 183,860 acres, Florida’s orange acres are down almost 26% compared to last year’s 248,028 acres. For the 2024-25 year, orange acres represented 88.3% of total Florida citrus acres.
By comparison, total grapefruit acres (12,787) declined 10.6% from the prior year, and total specialty citrus acres (11,536) were down 6.6%.
The only variety within the report’s categories to see additional acreage in the 2025 report compared to the 2024 report was “other citrus,” part of the specialty citrus category. “Other citrus” includes lemons and excludes mandarins. That subcategory saw an additional 590 acres (11.4%) with a total of 5,762 acres in the current report.