Invasive Fly Hits Florida, Leading Farmers To Destroy Crops And Threatening $700 Million Fruit Market

A small invasive fly has hit Florida hard, spreading rapidly and threatening to shut down a $700 million fruit industry.

The fly, the Oriental fruit fly, is a destructive species native to Asia that can lay eggs in fruit and destroy it. The species has made its way to the United States, and has threatened crops during a number of outbreaks in the last decade or so.

State and federal officials have already quarantined 85 square miles of farmland in Florida to fight against the Oriental fruit fly, which feeds on a variety of fruits and vegetables. The invasive fly was first seen near Miami a few weeks ago, prompting the shutdown of the farming industry in an attempt to stop its spread.

The shutdown has been hitting farmers hard. Salvador Fernandez, manager of J&C Tropicals, said all of his coolers normally filled with fruit are empty.

“It’s usually full,” he told NPR, “especially at this time of year, because we do truckloads of mamey and avocado and passion fruit and dragon fruit.”

The invasive fly has hit Florida so hard that the state’s agricultural commissioner, Adam Putnam, declared a state of emergency and ordered fruit destroyed in areas where the fruit is found.

As Putnam explained, the Oriental fruit fly can lay eggs that pose big problems for anyone unlucky enough to end up with a piece of fruit.

“It pierces it, lays its eggs, causes obviously a very unpleasant condition in that fruit when those eggs are laid in there,” he said.

Though experts believe the state’s efforts to eradicate the invasive fly are working, that may not be enough to help the Florida farmers forced to destroy their crops.

Salvador Fernandez told NPR that he’s had to let 20 million pounds of dragon fruit rot on the trees, and lost another 500,000 pounds of a fruit called mamey.

“There’s a lot of growers that will go bankrupt,” Fernandez said. “There’s a lot of people they just don’t have the cash flow to sustain these kind of losses.”

There have already been efforts underway to kill off the Oriental fruit flies. The Miami Herald reported that officials are seeking permission to spray crops with a pesticide called Malathion, which has been used to fight against invasive fruit flies in California.

Officials are keeping a close eye on the invasive fly fight in Florida, and say they could use a stronger aerial pesticide spraying campaign if it looks like the Oriental fruit flies are on the increase.

[Picture by Joe Raedle/Getty Images]