SaveCitrus has sent personal letters to Florida growers urging them to vote in a referendum against continuing the Florida Citrus Research Order. Coalition leader Jesse Rojas signed the letters, telling growers:
Is your citrus business better off now than it was in 2009?
Recently you might have received a ballot to vote on whether to keep a mechanism to tax Florida citrus growers to fund the Citrus Research and Development Foundation (CRDF). If you have not received one, you may download it here.
Since its creation in 2009 to lead the fight against the HLB citrus greening disease, CRDF has failed. It has poured $180,000,000 into a Research-Industrial Complex of foreign multinationals like Monsanto-Bayer, university academics with peer-reviewed papers, and failed politicians.
Here’s what Florida growers got from CRDF’s 13 years of failure: No solution to citrus greening. More than 100,000 acres of citrus groves lost. More than 5,500 of the state’s 8,000 citrus growers forced out of business. And worse to come.
CRDF wants to continue to squeeze the survivors with the box tax.
Some of our friends argue that growers should vote to keep the box tax assessment mechanism to show they have “skin in the game.” The fact is, CRDF has skinned them alive.
We at Save Citrus, a coalition of people whose lives depend on the citrus industry, say enough is enough. Time to vote “No” on the Referendum for the Florida Citrus Research Order.
