UMATILLA, Fla. — Florida Senate lawmakers are looking to earmark $200 million in the state budget to help the state’s citrus industry.

What You Need To Know

  • The Florida Senate has proposed setting aside $200 million to help the state's citrus industry fight greening disease and pests

  • A majority of the funds are aimed at researching pest and disease management, and rehabilitating existing citrus trees

  • Citrus farmer Mary Graham says she hopes to get greening under control

A bulk of the money, $190 million, would focus on large-scale field trials, including researching pest and disease management, along with rehabilitating existing trees. Some of that money would be available to acquire new citrus trees as well.

The remaining $10 million in the Senate’s proposed budget would fund citrus packinghouses for new equipment and technology.

“We were hopeful that the day would come that they could get this greening disease under control, that we would have the tools necessary,” said Mary Graham, owner of Graham Farms in Umatilla.

The farm, which opened in 1918, used to have citrus groves. Graham said the trees were uprooted last December due to Asian psyllid bugs starving their trees to death.

“They were so ill by this point that we didn't feel we could pull them back out of the out of the disease, out of the state that they were in,” she said. “We took half of that and put peaches in, and we're going to keep about two acres of citrus that we're gonna be putting back in.”

If the proposed budget is approved, it could help the remaining citrus farmers in Florida.

“All the infrastructure is gone," Graham said. "You know, people have sold off their packing houses and their juice plants. I think it used to be 20 juice plants in the state to now there's only eight."

Graham says she is hoping to plant new orange trees this summer, which take at least three years to grow. She has replaced her citrus groves with peaches, and she also grows blackberries and sunflowers.

While the money is included in the Senate’s budget proposal, the House and Senate will need to agree on a budget and pass it before the end of the legislative session.