
By Clint Thompson
Danny Munch, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), was a featured speaker during last week’s Citrus & Specialty Crop Expo in Tampa, Florida.
His main objective was to provide a broad overview of the citrus and specialty crop economies. They have faced their share of challenges over the past couple of decades but have also recorded some legislative victories.
One of those significant wins was part of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill that included key provisions for specialty crop producers. Munch highlighted those victories during an interview with AgNet Media.
“You have a number of different areas that were expanded in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. With crop insurance, there are still challenges there for offering policies to specialty crop producers. You did see premium subsidies increase for certain policies, so that supports producers who do have access to crop insurance,” Munch said.
“You have a number of research grants that were extended that supports research of invasive diseases and species for specialty crops. That includes the citrus greening program that wasn’t previously extended. We were glad to see that, and a number of different marketing programs; trade promotion was doubled in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“There’s lots of different items in this bill that hopefully will accumulate into more support for specialty crop growers.”