I totally get what your concerns are. And while I'm not a FL resident, I've traveled extensively through the orange grove areas. To be honest, I think you've already answered your own question. It may be best to look elsewhere. The very points you've made are the sticking points. Specifically, the emergence of citrus greening disease does seem to mean a great deal of additional pesticide usage in the groves-additional beyond what would already have been happening. Not sure I'd want to live around that business.

+om

i used to live in a small orange grove (6-7 acres). that was a few years back before CG. At that time I was not concerned about pesticides but I will say it crossed my mind. But now they are using more pesticides and you don't know WHAT pesticides they are using. On the other hand they have pulled a lot of pesticides off the market because of health and environment concerns.

when you consider the years that a grove is treated for "whatever" it makes you wonder what all is still in the soil or what is leaching down to the water table.

Yeah, I understand the appeal of a farmette :} but I am also concerned about pesticides and sinkholes (google Plant City Sinkholes after freeze)

You could possibly take some soil samples to your extension office and have it tested to see if there are traces of the pesticides in the soil... if you can find some places to take discreet samples. It is possible if the land on a generally windward side (up wind) of the farm that it hasn't caught much overspray, though here in Florida the windward side can change from day to day. There is also a lab in Australia that will do free, last I heard, tests for heavy metals and other undesirables, but I believe the shipping would be on you. Still, it is an option.

I understand your concern. I live in a rural area and the groves and ferneries have to spray or they won't have crops. If you are close enough to their spray, I doubt you would be organic. Spray for food crops is regulated and the farmers don't want to spend any more on spraying than is necessary. I personally would rather live here, than next to the guy that gets his lawn sprayed monthly. No matter if you are buying an existing home or building with a new well, it has to be tested by law. I wouldn't be as concerned by agricultural contamination as I would if it was near an old gas station, laundromat, golf courses and numerous other polluters from the past. Those are the real problems. We own a drilling company and install monitoring wells in contaminated sites. That's why I am familiar with those problems.

Just saw ur post and I know it's been a couple years since u posted it but just wanted to weigh in so others could see this. I too live just north of tampa, backed up next to a big orange grove. I have been here 16 years and about 10 years ago I started feeling very tired and slow. I had always been a very strong go getter workaholic. I thought for a few years that this must be part of getting older. Well as the years rolled on I became more and more sick. I have been from doctor to doctor with no diagnosis. Til finally I came across a doctor that asked me if I was possibly being exposed to large amounts of pesticides. I quickly recalled the image in my mind of the trucks constantly driving up and down the rows of orange trees blowing a cloud of pesticides over the entire area. My cars are covered with it every time they spray(which seems to be a lot). I thought for a moment and told him of my location and the close proximity to the grove. He hit his hand on the desk and loudly stated "that's it"! Well sadly there is no easy fix for this and I'm not in a financial position to relocate immediately. So I remain very sick and brain scans show lesions on my brain. So my advice to anyone out there looking to move to the "country" is to stay as far away from agricultural property as possible. We eat pesticides in our food and that's really bad but adding it to our everyday environment where it's sprayed on everything we touch, the air we breathe and even the water we drink from our wells is clearly more than the human body can take. If I could turn back time, I would never have bought this property and maybe today I wouldn't be struggling every day of my life to survive.

That is terrifying! forthepeople.com is what I say.

While I think a lot of pesticides aren't super harmful to humans (they are aimed to kill bugs, not us, and bugs have different sensitivities e.g. caffeine is technically a pesticide but it's a stimulant in us) I do think they add up and I really bet we aren't getting the full story on how they affect us and I also think it's impossible to fully get the effects until we use them as broadly as we do now.

What jofarmer said is horrifying. I hope you have the resources (or find someone willing to work pro bono) to sue... at least enough to get money to move someplace else! no one should be trapped living in such an environment..

I personally would avoid living near a conventional farm. I think it also would make your garden more susceptible to pests (both in that the citrus would attract them and the pesticides would kill beneficial insects). Not only that but the pesticides might affect your pets in unseen ways if you have some since they can have sensitives different than a human, etc. And area might not be safe for kids because smaller bodies = smaller doses are more dangerous.

Just doesn't seem worth the risk until better spraying practices are developed (personally I'm holding out for new strains and GMO'd citrus that can resist greening, I hate Monsanto for a vast array of reasons but the tech behind GMO is fine when used on cultivated plants that have little danger of escaping, in my opinion, I just hate the anti-farmer and roundup ready nonsense which causes MORE pesticide use.)

I also like the country and cheaper wide space is always something I can not loving but be Caution. I bought a newer nice range home not far south of I-4 near a 50 acres strawberry farm and I only used it for vacation home and lived there a few weeks a few times a year, what I found out is that when they start to farm, they spray pesticide across the road , I could not go outside. It smelt pesticides. If you can smell you know you are exposed to it.

I sold it.