Marketing Citrus Crops

Your Dec. 23 editorial (“California’s Oranges of Wrath”) about the citrus marketing order that has brought stability to the naval orange market for 50 years brings to mind some old folk wisdom: “The trouble ain’t that people are ignorant, it’s that they know so much that ain’t so.”

The charge that billions of oranges are destroyed because of the marketing order is simply wrong.

The 6,500 Sunkist farmer-members aim to sell their entire crop each year. The vast majority of California navel oranges are sold in grocery stores across the United States; a significant share of the crop is exported--earning the United States about $500 million in foreign trade revenues--and some oranges that do not meet the size of equality standards necessary for marketing in fresh produce channels are diverted to juicing. Less than 2% of the naval orange crop is used for feed or left on the trees.

The marketing order system has provided both consumers and growers the benefits of steady supply and steady prices. Over the past 25 years, at a time that the U.S. population has grown by one-quarter, the production of navel oranges in California has risen by 300% from 30 million cartons a year to 90 million cartons a year--hardly an indication of a system that restricts the availability of oranges. The self-regulatory system works, so we needn’t fix it.

CURT ANDERSON, Vice President

Sunkist Growers, Van Nuys