Australia’s orange industry could benefit from the global supply crisis

Oranges – and all the things we can make from them – are big business. But the industry is facing a severe crisis.

About 50 million tonnes of oranges are grown each year, 34% of them in Brazil. Brazil is also the world’s biggest exporter of orange juice by far, producing about 70% of the global supply.

But Brazil’s orange-growing regions have recently endured extreme drought and heat stress in the crop’s flowering period, as well as alarming rates of citrus greening disease – an incurable bacterial infection.

As a result, Brazil’s orange production is now forecast to fall by more than 24% in the 2024–25 season, which would be the country’s smallest harvest since the late 1980s.