The Conversation: Sugar Cane Fields In Florida

Thursday, March 7, 2019

Sugar Cane Fields In Florida

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The sugarcane area is so compact that most Florida visitors never see a sugarcane field.

Sugar cane fields in florida. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. This story was originally published by ProPublica. In Florida 75 of sugar is grown in the Glades region of Palm Beach County.

Sugarcane ash covers the hood and windshield of a car in one of the rural towns between Lake Okeechobee and South Floridas sprawling sugar fields. A quarter of the nations sugar comes from Floridas Everglades Agricultural Area. No doubt about that.

When the flames die down machines roll in to chop down the stalks and shunt them off to. Floridas practice of sugarcane burning is at the heart of a class action lawsuit filed in 2019 against nearly a dozen growers in addition to the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida. Sugar Corporation points at a canal coursing among the fields.

Patterson says that smoke from sugar cane burns trigger her asthma. The two other states where sugar is grown are Texas and Louisiana. In this Nov.

Florida is the largest producer of sugar cane in the United States followed by Louisiana Hawaii and Texas in order of production. One of my favorite places to herp in Florida is in Hendry County in and around the sugar cane fields near Lake Okeechobee. Our favorite part of the tour was sitting out in the sugar cane field watching the harvesters and tractors do their thing right in front of us the harvester looked like something out of a Mad Max movie with the resulting swarms of birds looking for a snack mostly cattle egrets with some herons.

Then we went over to a railroad siding and watched the tractors dump the cane into the rail cars took a brief tour of. The burning starts in October when sugarcane companies begin to set fire to nearly 400000 acres on the shores of Floridas Lake Okeechobee clearing away the leaves to prepare the plants for harvest. The Florida Legislature just passed a bill that would make it harder to file lawsuits.

In March 2018 Tellusa company jointly owned by the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida and Florida Crystals Corporationopened a 75 million state-of-the art manufacturing facility in Belle Glade offering biodegradable products such as. The rest is harvested in the adjacent counties of. For generations Floridas sugar cane farmers have legally set fire to their fields prior to harvest.

I have to drive a few hours to get to Hendry County but during any given weekend throughout February or March this is where I will likely be found. 4 2019 photo Kaniyah Patterson stands in front of a sugar cane field behind her home in Pahokee Fla. Florida companies turned cane from farmers such as the Hammocks into 630 million worth of sugar in 2017.

This article was produced in partnership with The Palm. A sugar cane field is burned in Clewiston Florida in 2008. Sugarcane can be grown anywhere in Florida.

Fires are returning to South Florida sugar cane fields fanning the flames of dispute over smoke and ash from burning during harvest season. Burning sugar fields have poisoned the air for decades. Here where the river of grass once flowed cane fields stretch to every horizon green and swaying.

The commercial sugarcane industry is located in south Florida around the southern tip of Lake Okeechobee. They claim the smoke causes asthma difficulty breathing and other illnesses. The lawsuit alleges that 10 residents of the Glades were injured due to particulates in the air from sugarcane burning.

This is farm water Judy Sanchez of the US.

Florida Sugar Cane League The Voice Of Florida Sugar Cane Farmers