For three years, the CRDF has been paying millions of dollars to a German multinational with no results to show in the fight against citrus greening. Now CRDF is hoping for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to give it another $8 million this year, while failing to test promising, off-the shelf solutions to the disease that could go to market NOW.
“CRDF and others have previously paid Bayer $12.6 million, with most of that coming from CRDF, for three years of research through this June,” Citrus Industry News reports.
CRDF chief Rick Dantzler says, “we have to get it right because we don’t have money to waste.”
Dantzler and his organization have wasted $150,000,000 so far by failing to find a cure while his academics push peer-reviewed works that have little relevance to CRDF’s mandate, but go a long way toward promoting the careers of the academics.
Dantzler and CRDF have also failed because they favor big-ticket solutions that multinationals like Bayer of Germany, and its Monsanto subsidiary, really like but that ignore inexpensive solutions that show immediate potential.
Dantzler says he is hoping that the US Department of Agriculture funds Bayer after 2020.
Dantzler announced that CRDF and three partners have agreed to continue funding Bayer Crop Science research on HLB for the last six months of this year, at a cost of up to $421,000 each. CRDF and others have previously paid Bayer $12.6 million, with most of that coming from CRDF, for three years of research through this June.
“The other partners committed to funding the project through the end of this year are the California Citrus Research Board, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo,” according to Citrus Industry News. “Dantzler said the partners hope a US Department of Agriculture grant will fund the Bayer work after 2020. Bayer is working to develop a plant defense modulator that causes trees to switch on their natural defense mechanisms against HLB, as well as compounds that will kill the HLB bacteria.”
