Sugar reels in wake of nature
CLEWISTON — “The sugarcane harvest is about 40-percent complete, expected to finish in early April.”
That’s the current mark of progress of this year’s harvest as reported by U.S. Sugar, which expects another loss in sugar and citrus production after suffering hits from Hurricane Wilma in October, and a damaging freeze that covered the area this week.
With several hurricanes last harvest season, U.S. Sugar suffered a bad year for sugar harvesting, and this year is expected to be worse. The corporation projects this year’s sugar production to be down about 25 percent, compared to average production years.
“We have produced, on average, as much as 900,000 tons of sugar a year, and this season we are projecting just 650,000 tons,” said USSC Director of Corporate Communications Judy Sanchez. “The damage from Hurricane Wilma will impact us for the next two years. There is significant damage to our plant cane and to the root systems of the mature cane,” she said.
In addition to hurricane damage, a significant valuable portion of citrus and sugar acreage was damaged by frost this weekend. Several farms recorded temperatures below 30 degrees for more than five hours.
“Our agriculture department sounded more like a surgical triage unit Monday morning as they reported that they were searching out the ‘most wounded’ frost and hurricane damaged cane to harvest and process before it further deteriorated,” said Ms. Sanchez.
The hurricane not only impacted the current sugarcane crop, but a major impact has been felt by United States Sugar Corporation’s processing operations as well.
According to the company, there is a lot of mud, trash and debris coming in with the cane, about 25 percent more than normal. This slows down the harvest by a dangerous margin, and also slows down the processing and reduces sugar yields.
The company has also found that refining processes are producing a significantly higher amount of molasses, a by-product, which means the sugarcane has deteriorated, and the company is having trouble making as much cane as it normally would.
The sugar industry will continue to feel the effects of hurricane damage in many other areas besides the farming aspect. Structural fixtures such as the refinery and several sugar warehouses have also suffered great amounts of damage, and repairs could take months to complete.
“The refinery has a temporary roof in place and is running well. We are very fortunate that we have some highly dedicated and hard working employees who have worked long hours trying to get everything operational,” said Ms. Sanchez. “As everyone else in South Florida knows, it is hard to find a roofer these days. The refinery had a technologically advanced membrane roof that basically peeled back like a tin can,” she said.
The company had tremendous damage to its sugar warehouses, particularly at the Bryant Mill. According to USSC, this was an enormous financial hit, which will also impact normal primary operations.
In order to store the amount of sugar the company is producing each day, employees have been instructed to pile the sugar on the concrete floors of the warehouses and pull a huge tarp across the sugar piles — not an ideal situation, because some sugar could be lost due to water and runoff.
Despite the somewhat bleak situation USSC faces in terms of its harvest, the company says it must keep a positive outlook about the circumstances.
The corporation recently stirred up local interest in the sugar mill’s state of affairs when four colossal boiler units were delivered via Lake Okeechobee. The boilers, each far too large to be transported safely on normal highways were unloaded from barges and meticulously transferred to the USSC facility, where a state of the art processing mill is being assembled by the company, which released an official statement addressing the current conditions:
“As farmers, we have got to be somewhat optimistic. We are going to keep on farming, keep on coming to work each day and doing our jobs. We are making good progress on the breakthrough milling project and are on schedule to operate the largest sugar mill in the world here in Clewiston in 2007.”