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A strategy needed in canker fight

With federal support gone for the state's eradication program, a new policy is needed.

ORLANDO - The federal government's withdrawal of financial support for citrus canker eradication means Florida growers might have to rely on costly chemicals and wind breaks to save the $9-billion industry, researchers say.

"This will be the order of the day for the near future," said Dr. Jim Graham, professor of soil microbiology at the University of Florida's Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday it would no longer help pay for the 10-year-old program, which required the removal of every citrus tree within 1,900 feet of one infected with canker.

The policy riled homeowners, many with pending lawsuits against the state, who watched workers cut down healthy trees in their back yards to prevent the spread of canker to commercial groves. In exchange, they were given $100 vouchers to Wal-Mart for the first tree killed and $55 for each additional one.

The disease - caused by bacteria that can be transferred by birds, humans and wind - inflicts blemishes and citrus production, but is harmless to humans.

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services insists the eradication program would have been successful - perhaps within months - if two nasty hurricane seasons hadn't blown it further around the state.

Since it did, the Legislature must soon rewrite its canker policy, and state and federal agriculture officials must decide what it should be.

Graham, who studies canker, and colleagues are planning at least four meetings with growers and production managers around the state to help them adapt.

"We're kind of mounting a blitz of information," he said, much of it learned from South American countries that have battled canker without a broad eradication program.

Abandoning the eradication policy may vindicate homeowners who have brought legal challenges against the state over compensation for lost trees, and argued it should never have cut them down.

"The government position is absurd, and has been from the beginning," said Brian Patchen, a Miami Beach attorney who sued after his six citrus trees were destroyed. "There was no way citrus canker could be truly eliminated to begin with given the demographics of Florida."

Liz Compton of the Florida Department of Agriculture insisted the program was successful, and said its end doesn't signal otherwise.

"To those who say, "Did I lose my tree for nothing?' The answer is no," she said. "The picture changed. The face of this changed because of the hurricanes."

[Last modified January 13, 2006, 01:45:18]