It is a cruel time to be reading Citrus: A History. A survey by the South Australian Citrus Industry Development Board has predicted a thirty to forty per cent drop in next year’s orange crop. Growers, allowed to use only sixteen per cent of their total irrigation allocation, have bulldozed trees and borrowed money to buy water. A posse stormed Parliament House in Adelaide. The premier subsequently doubled the trickle, but far too late. One grower, who used to divide his water allocation between grapes and oranges, pulled his citrus trees out in order to nurture grapes, which command a higher price.
Citrus: A history by Pierre Lazlo
University of Chicago Press (Footprint), $37.95 hb, 252 pp
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