Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX28) today helped secure $50 million within the Fiscal Year 2016 Agricultural Appropriations bill to save the citrus industry in Texas.

Congressman Cuellar, whose district includes a portion of the Rio Grande Valley—the top citrus-producing area in Texas, understands the importance of the $11.2 billion citrus industry in the United States and how it has been affected by Huanglongbing (HLB), also known as citrus-greening disease, which is lethal to citrus plants, carried by an insect known as the Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP).

HLB is a disease that greens ripe citrus and misshapes the fruit, making it bitter and unmarketable. The disease can kill the trees in as little as five years after being infected and is transmitted by the Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP). It has devastated groves in all of Florida and has now been detected in Texas groves.

Dale Murden of Texas Citrus Mutual, a non-profit trade association representing Texas citrus growers, owns a citrus grove in the Rio Gande Valley and has personally seen the effects of the disease since it was first positively identified in the Valley in 2008.

“It is becoming a very wide-spread problem in the Valley… as serious the situation in Florida already is,” Murden said. “Can you imagine the Rio Grande Valley without citrus trees? Because that’s what could happen. Quite frankly, it can wipe this industry out and we’ll never have citrus here again until there’s a cure, and there is no cure,” he added.

“This disease has been catastrophic for citrus groves in Florida and threatens the entire industry here in Texas,” said Congressman Cuellar. “These $50 million in federal funds are the highest funding level for citrus pest efforts in an appropriations bill and allow us a fighting chance to save the citrus industry in Texas, as well as the livelihoods of citrus growers all across the Rio Grande Valley. 

“We must do everything we can to protect citrus in Texas. I thank my fellow South Texas colleagues for their help in securing these funds into the FY16 agriculture appropriations bill.”

As part of these $50 million, Congressman Cuellar helped allocate $6.5 million into the bill for the Huanglongbing Multi-Agency Coordination (MAC), a task force specifically targeting the citrus greening crisis. He also secured $43.5 million in federal funds for the Citrus Health Response Program (CHRP), which is a national program critical to combating citrus diseases. Federal funds are used in partnership with other state agriculture departments and citrus industry groups to research, survey and combat both the pest and the disease.

http://www.myharlingennews.com/?p=46323