[caminante]

OK so the grandparent's comment was clumsy.

Now, I see a slate of historical hurricanes in FL from 2004-05 that hit the Ridge area. This contradicts the article as these weren't baby storms.

The issue is clearly the rise of this blight bacteria that has made the groves less resilient to storms and has weakend production.

[cineticdaffodil]

The meta reason is a missunderstanding of nature. Even the industry basically considers it a tamed beast of burden, while environmentalist usually consider it as a sort of gaia godess raped by industrial mankind. Nature is war and fast adaption of wha works. The trees war the grass for shade. And every mono culture, be they cloned crab or planted orchard, is a giant dice inviting disaster with every yearly throw. And on that scale adaption and transportation yields rewards for those animals and plants transporting anti-man properties fast. We are running a adveserial breeding program for anti-human critters. And when they exist, as they do and did in all places with longstanding human populations and agriculture- they take the invite on speed dial. We simply are dragged back into the eternal conflict. We always where a part of nature and this is how it feels like to be a part of that. Counter measures? Lets ask the statisticians.. anything that eats dice throws of the advesaries.

[expedition32]

The Netherlands has been fighting nature for a thousand years. Inevitably one day we'll lose but it's a worthwhile endeavour.

[acdha]

How does that contradict the article? It seems like it supports it if those were the events which helped harm the previously-strong citrus industry - those storms are part of what hit at the peak, starting the decline.

[caminante]

Did you not see the article claim that the grove areas hadn't been hit by storms before/as big as some listed in the last decade?

Just not true with their phrasing.

edit:

for clarity, the author referenced 2017+ vintage hurricanes as if nothing of their intensity had hit before: Irma (2017), Ian (2022), Idalia (2023), Helene (2024), and Milton (2024). None of these got beyond cat 4. Meanwhile there were certainly other hurricanes that were cat4 that hit the groves in 2004-05.