MR. SPARKS: Good morning. My name is Mike Sparks and I'm the Deputy Executive Director of the Florida Department of Citrus. We're headquartered in Lakeland. Our Board of Directors is the Florida Citrus Commission. We're a state agency. Our job primarily is to market Florida citrus, and work for the welfare of the Florida citrus grower. We do some research and some regulatory activities, but 85 percent of our dollars spent every year is to develop the marketing programs for the Florida citrus growers.

Our advertising efforts are domestically as well as internationally, and of course our international programs, as well as international trade, are of serious concern to our activities and our programs. Certainly, the last 20 years our international trade has been increasingly important not only to the marketing programs to the citrus industry -- it coincides with the increased size of our crops. Certainly in the '80s and the '90s the citrus industry has recovered from some devastating freezes, and now nearly 900,000 acres in the state of Florida are dedicated to citrus. With current agricultural techniques, with the replanting, we expect to have bumper crops, record-setting crops, now and in the immediate future.

In total, our activity in the citrus to the state of Florida, our total economic activity, approximates 8 billion dollars and the citrus industry employs over 100,000 Floridians.

The Department of Citrus and the citrus industry has developed some extremely important partnerships with the United States Department of Agriculture and USTR as they try to foster the development of new, lucrative export markets. Our activity with USDA and the MAP program helps us further advance our marketing programs of which we have welcomed the opportunity to work together. And certainly new markets such as China are very -- we're very optimistic in some of the areas there to help increase our exports.

But as important as those international markets are, we just simply can not ignore, simply can not recommend, trading away the existing tariffs on FCOJ. Let's talk -- let me share with you in just a second a supplement to Mr. Andy LaVigne's thoughts on the cost of Brazilian and Florida product, as well as some of the investments that the citrus grower has already made.

Our research, and it is supported by the University of Florida, shows currently not unlike the past data that the cost to grow -- the growing cost in Brazil approximate 48 cents per pound solid. That includes pick and haul, capital cost and the citrocultural costs. Compared to Florida, 76 cents or nearly 30 cents greater per pound solids to grow and produce our Florida citrus.

The significant difference in the cost between our growers and Brazilian growers is certainly the higher environmental and labor costs faced by our growers in the state of Florida. In fact, this year alone labor was difficult and when we could get labor to harvest our crops we estimate that it was an additional 54 million dollars this year alone to harvest this year's crop.

To compact the difference, Florida relies on the quality of our products as well as our domestic tariff established on FCOJ to keep our growers in business. Any reductions to the current FCOJ tariff would have the world's single largest market, the United States, be flooded by competition from above. If you look at the U.S. market, currently the average per capita consumption in the United States of orange juice is nearly 6 gallons per every man, woman and child. If you look at other countries around the world, United Kingdom half of that, 3 gallons. It drops down of course, Japan, Spain, not quite 1 gallon per year.

There are two reasons there's a marketable difference in per capita consumption in the United States as compared to other countries. Certainly, the economic power of the American consumer, but second, the investment of the Florida citrus grower. Our citrus forefathers and our current Commissioner continues to provide commodity advertising to support Florida orange juice and Florida fresh citrus.

If you look at the increase in consumption decade by decade, we believe our advertising programs, as well as the brand advertising programs, help increase the consumption of Florida OJ.

Florida growers have invested in the past -- since 1935 since the Florida Department of Citrus was incorporated, Florida citrus growers have invested 1.2 billion dollars in marketing programs only to grow the U.S. market. They deserve a great deal of credit for having the focus to make such a dramatic investment, yet the 1.2 billion dollars that the growers have paid since 1935 is only a small part of the industry's overall investment.

Investments in processing plants, fresh fruit packing houses, infrastructures, brand advertising, all support our current total economic industry of 8 billion dollars. All were developed with the understanding that there was the federally mandated tariff on FCOJ. That gave us the assurance to develop not only the U.S. market, but of course fair international trade.

We have a paper that we would like to leave behind. But certainly, as a closing statement it is the belief of the Department of Citrus and the Florida Citrus Commission that our growers deserve fair consideration of our Federal Government that any future trade negotiations be limited -- no tariff reductions and the limitations not go beyond those already committed in the European trade events.

Certainly, on behalf of the Florida Department of Citrus and the Citrus Commission I want to thank you for your attendance and certainly for the opportunity to share some of the concerns that we have.

(Applause.)