Precise information on losses for citrus producers in top grower Florida will take days to be released, analysts said, as people in the area deal with power outages and flooding makes it difficult to check on farms. Orange juice futures jumped in the last three sessions.

Florida orange production was already expected to be poor, as planted areas have been falling yearly due to real estate expansion and the spread of the greening fungus disease.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. orange production was estimated to fall 13 per cent to the lowest in over 55 years at 3.5 million tons before the storm.

“Some of the growers that are still investing in citrus production in Florida, battling the disease with new varieties, will be hard hit by this storm,” said soft commodities analyst Judy Ganes.

She said that the strong winds have likely “transported” the greening fungus from abandoned orange farms to renovated ones, wasting the work and investment.

Ian’s aftermath would be bad for the juice industry.

Although imports from Brazil and Mexico currently make up for most of the orange juice consumed in the U.S., Florida’s production was important to the industry since it is mostly the not from concentrate (NFC) variety, which has gained popularity among consumers compared to the older style, frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ).

Foreign suppliers prefer to export FCOJ since it takes less space in vessels and is easier to handle.

Ganes said that if there is a shortage of NFC juice in the market, or if prices for that skyrocket, the industry could further lose share for other beverages.

— Reporting for Reuters by Marcelo Teixeira.

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Tyson, the biggest U.S. meat company, hopes to resume normal operations soon at chicken plants it shuttered in Cumming, Dawson and Vienna, Ga., and at a beef facility in Jacksonville, Fla., spokesman Derek Burleson said.

Irma, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded, hit a wide swath of Florida on Sunday and Monday before moving inland into neighbouring states.

In Georgia, the Port of Savannah, which exports almost a third of all U.S. poultry, will remain closed through Tuesday, the Georgia Ports Authority said.

Among the areas hit in Florida was the state’s prime citrus-producing region, said Lisa Lochridge, spokeswoman for the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association.

Florida is ranked first among U.S. states in production value for oranges and in 2015 produced US$1.17 billion of the fruit, accounting for 60 per cent of the value of total U.S. orange production, according to Florida’s agriculture department. The state is also a major producer of tomatoes and sugarcane.

“The fruit was just stripped from the trees by the wind,” Lochridge said, citing early reports from orange growers. Oranges knocked to the ground cannot be consumed, she said.

In southern Florida, heavy rain also flooded orange groves, forcing growers to pump out standing water to reduce the risk of disease hurting trees, she said.

Shelley Rossetter, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Citrus, said “everyone is busy assessing their properties.”

Fertilizer maker Mosaic Co. said Irma damaged facilities, including a fertilizer warehouse at Bartow, Florida, and caused disruptions in the supply chain that are expected to impact third-quarter phosphates production volumes.

Mosaic has also stopped making phosphate price offers to domestic and international customers due to uncertainty about product availability and its ability to ship product after the storm, according to a company statement.

Mosaic has a storage and shipping facility at the Port of Tampa Bay and is the biggest tenant by volume. Crews from Mosaic and the port will return there to check for damage to storage tanks as soon as winds diminish below tropical storm force status, said Paul Anderson, the port’s president.

Power outages

High winds snapped power lines and left about 7.3 million homes and businesses without power in Florida and elsewhere in the U.S. Southeast, state officials and utilities said. They said it could take weeks to complete repairs.

Warehouses certified by the Intercontinental Exchange to store coffee remained closed on Monday, and at least one of them was without power.

Cal-Maine Foods, the biggest U.S. egg producer, said some egg farms and production facilities in Florida and Georgia suffered flooding and minor damage from the storm and were operating on back-up power generators. The company does not expect any material loss in egg production, though.

“At this time, it is too soon to tell just how much Hurricane Irma has devastated the agriculture industry,” said Adam Putnam, Florida’s agriculture commissioner.

Grain handler Archer Daniels Midland said it was closing facilities as needed because of Irma. The company’s oilseed processing facilities at Valdosta and Dawson, Ga. are within the path of the storm.

In South Carolina, the Port of Charleston halted shipping operations from 2 p.m. ET due to the storm, the South Carolina Ports Authority said in a client advisory. It expects normal operations to resume on Tuesday.

The port handles exports of poultry, grapefruits and lemons, among other goods.

— Tom Polansek reports on agriculture and agribusiness for Reuters from Chicago. Additional reporting for Reuters by Theopolis Waters, Karl Plume and Michael Hirtzer in Chicago and Renita Young in New York.

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Florida sugar and citrus processors rushed to secure rail cars and equipment that could be crushed, blocked or turned into flying projectiles. Cattlemen opened up their fences and moved animals to higher ground and wooded areas, which can offer some relief from high winds.

To the north, cotton farmers in North and South Carolina fretted their fields might be facing a fate similar to their Texas counterparts. Late last month, Hurricane Harvey, which became a tropical storm after making landfall in Texas, destroyed an estimated $150 million worth of cotton, ripping the bolls off plants and leaving white fiber strewn across fields (all figures US$).

At U.S. Sugar, a Clewiston, Florida-based sugar producer that farms, mills and refines sugar, staff are drawing down water levels in farm canals, securing processing facilities and making plans for post-storm cleanup, company spokeswoman Judy Sanchez said.

“There’s not a thing we can do about the cane fields and orange groves, but pray,” said Adam H. Putnam, commissioner of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

One particularly keen concern for the sugar industry: How badly can the hurricane damage the sugar cane fields, as harvest is set to begin on Oct. 1?

Worries about Hurricane Irma hitting growing regions in the Caribbean and Florida helped boost raw sugar futures on the Intercontinental Exchange on Wednesday. Orange concentrate futures for November delivery also jumped Wednesday to $1.499 per pound, the highest since early May.

Florida sugar cane accounts for nearly a quarter of sugar produced in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The hurricane also could potentially impact sugar prices through oil and ethanol prices, said James Liddiard, analyst at Agrilion Commodity Advisors in New York. Sugar prices often track energy prices as petroleum is a key input cost and millers can divert cane to sugar or ethanol.

State officials in Florida called for evacuations ahead of the storm’s expected landfall there this weekend, as the potentially catastrophic hurricane slammed through Caribbean islands with pounding winds, rain and surging surf.

Hurricane Irma is expected to impact the U.S. along the eastern coast of Florida, according to the National Weather Service, before moving on to Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina — states known for cotton, grain and livestock production.

The biggest risk the North Carolina cotton crops faces is wind, which would blow cotton plants over, said Guy Collins, a cotton extension associate professor and specialist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Heavy rain too could push the cotton bolls to the wet ground and cause rot.

North and South Carolina represent about five per cent of cotton acres planted this year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

Storm prep led livestock operators in North Carolina, the country’s second-largest producer of hogs and turkeys, to stock their grain bins with extra feed, in case the roads washed out.

Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest hog producer and processor owned by Hong Kong-based WH Group, was closely monitoring pits holding liquid hog waste, said company spokeswoman Kathleen Kirkham.

At Prestage Farms, staff are testing backup generators and making sure there is ample fuel to keep them running. They are also preparing to shutter the company’s turkey processing plant in St. Paul, N.C. if the storm turns dangerous to that area.

“Planning can go a long way,” said Ron Prestage of the Clinton, N.C.-based hog and turkey producer. “We plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

— Reporting for Reuters by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago and Renita D. Young in New York; additional reporting by Theopolis Waters in Chicago.

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Southeastern companies were closing down operations ahead of a storm that could threaten some two million tonnes of sugar and trees representing over 90 million boxes of citrus fruits in Florida. About half a million acres of cotton were at risk from torrential rain in North and South Carolina, where farmers have already been struggling during a rainy harvest.

Officials issued a state of emergency for parts of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas for the Category 4 hurricane that by Thursday afternoon had already taken the lives of 140 people, mostly in Haiti. Port operations along the coast were slowing or shut.

For commodities markets including U.S. sugar, orange juice and cotton, the storm prompted a volatile week of trade. Though forecasters like senior meteorologist Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. said damage to Florida’s sugar and citrus crops would likely be limited, producers were readying for the worst.

The storm has forced a shutdown of sugar operations just days into the harvest, said Ryan Weston, executive vice-president of the Sugar Cane League, which represents growers in Florida, Texas and Hawaii.

“Depending on the intensity and path of the winds, hurricanes will knock the cane down to the ground, slowing harvest way down. It hurts this harvest and the next,” Weston said.

The storm was expected to hit Florida or brush along the state’s east coast through Friday night, then work its way up the Atlantic coast.

As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Matthew contained sustained winds of 225 km/h and gusts up to 265 km/h, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It was about 60 km east-southeast of West Palm Beach, Florida, and was moving to the north-northwest at 22 km/h.

Florida’s east coast, predominantly grapefruit country, was expected to bear the brunt of the storm. There, trees have already been weakened from disease, said Lerner.

“Our growers are already facing challenges,” said Nikki Hayde, senior marketing manager for Florida’s Natural Growers, a co-operative of about 1,000 citrus farmers throughout the state.

“We are trying to get out orders that were scheduled for Thursday and Friday on the road as quickly as possible,” she said.

‘Harvesting as fast as we can’

The U.S. livestock industry was also closely tracking the storm’s path, likely to brush the hog-rich Carolinas.

Smithfield Foods, a subsidiary of WH Group and the world’s largest hog producer and pork processor, moved to protect people, animals and buildings from the impending storm, said company spokeswoman Keira Lombardo in an e-mail.

Crews at the port of Wilmington, N.C. prepared for Matthew’s winds by lowering container stacks and tying down equipment.

In North and South Carolina’s cotton-growing regions, farmers raced to bring in fibre from fields where rains have delayed harvesting and the plants were at one of their most vulnerable stages, most susceptible to the two to 15 inches of rain expected.

“It’s tricky,” said Michael Quinn, president and chief executive of Carolinas Cotton Growers Cooperative. “The growers are harvesting as fast as they can.”

“We are closely monitoring conditions ahead of the storm and working proactively with farmers to help them prepare for a significant rainfall event. Governor McCrory has declared a state of emergency for all 100 counties in central and eastern North Carolina as we brace for as much as 10 to 12 inches of rain in our coastal areas,” said North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality spokeswoman Stephanie Hawco.

— Reporting for Reuters by Chris Prentice in New York and Theopolis Waters and Karl Plume in Chicago.

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Moscow said this week it hopes to hold talks with Egypt, its top buyer, over Cairo’s failure to approve Russian wheat shipments since tightening its regulations on ergot, a common grains fungus, in late August.

Several cargoes suspected of containing trace levels of the fungus have since been held at Russian ports, awaiting a decision from Cairo over whether to allow them to pass under the old rule, traders said.

Zero tolerance on ergot could halt Russian wheat exports to Egypt at a time when the country has its largest wheat crop in post-Soviet history.

Egypt’s state grain buyer GASC purchased 540,000 tonnes of the grain from Russia since July before tightening its import restrictions on ergot, banning the fungus entirely and saying the new rule would apply retroactively, affecting hundreds of thousands of tonnes yet to be shipped.

The sales were originally agreed to under a rule allowing 0.05 per cent ergot, a common international standard.

Russian wheat export prices fell last week, partly due to delayed supplies to Egypt, and are expected to remain under pressure until the situation is resolved, traders said.

Egypt bought six million tonnes of Russian wheat in the 2015-16 marketing year, which ended on June 30, a quarter of Moscow’s total wheat exports for the period.

Russia’s food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said Tuesday it was concerned about the “systematic breach of international and phytosanitary requirements” in “massive supplies” of Egyptian citrus fruit set for export to Russia.

Russia has a history of using threats and limiting imports in trade disputes. It did not disclose the list of the products that could be banned and did not answer calls from Reuters.

Russia bought around US$150 million of Egyptian citrus products in 2015, about 13 per cent of its total citrus imports from across the world.

One Egyptian fruit trader told Reuters he had not heard of any Russian complaints about Egyptian citrus.

“Of course there are huge worries for us because any comment or decision will directly affect the size of contracts,” he said.

The head of Egypt’s agriculture quarantine said it had received no notification from Russia about the “systemic breaches” of its fruit.

“The Egyptian agriculture quarantine will respond to this forcefully and based on scientific grounds,” quarantine head Ibrahim Imbaby told Reuters.

“Egypt is the largest customer for Russia. Everything is quite gloomy with its absence on the market,” Dmitry Rylko, the head of IKAR consultancy said.

A source at Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiisk said he did not expect the delayed wheat shipments to see any progress until the end of Egypt’s Eid al-Adha holiday later this week.

— Reporting for Reuters by Polina Devitt in Moscow and Eric Knecht in Cairo.

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