LAKELAND — Under the strain of falling crop numbers and tax revenues with no relief in sight, the Florida Citrus Commission plans today to discuss canceling its current advertising contract and ending a nearly 50-year tradition of promoting orange juice on television.
"Everything is really coming back to a matter of income," said Lake Wales-based grower Marty McKenna, the commission chairman. "It's not a philosophical discussion. It's an economic and financial look at the numbers."
The continuing decline in Florida's orange crop because of citrus greening, a fatal bacterial disease, means the Florida Department of Citrus does not have enough money to finance an effective TV marketing campaign, McKenna said.
The Citrus Commission governs the department, a state agency whose primary mission is marketing Florida citrus products. It raises most of its revenue through a tax on the annual citrus harvest. The department has been advertising orange juice on TV at least since 1969, when it hired entertainer Anita Bryant as its spokeswoman.
Many growers still consider that campaign the department's most effective, but the commission to terminated Bryant's contact in 1979, when she led an effort to overturn a Miami-Dade County gay anti-discrimination ordinance, causing a nationwide orange juice boycott.
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Kevin Bouffard writes for the Lakeland Ledger.