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- Sugarcane Farmers Finish ‘Good’ Season
Although the sugarcane harvest season often stretches past New Year’s, Louisiana mills finished processing the 2003 harvest on Dec. 28.
“For the most part, it was a relatively good harvest season,” said Ben Legendre, sugarcane specialist with the LSU AgCenter’s Sugar Research Station at St. Gabriel.
Legendre said the Louisiana yields were somewhere between 30 tons and 31 tons of cane per acre, which was off two to three tons from last year’s harvest. On the other hand, the average sugar yield per ton of cane was between 212 pounds and 215 pounds – up from 179 pounds of sugar per ton of cane last year.
“Sugar recoveries per ton were much better than last year,” Legendre said. “But it was about average for the previous five years, excluding the low yield of the 2002 crop.”
Legendre also pointed out tropical storms and late-season rains in 2002 hampered harvest and reduced sugar yields and mill efficiencies.
Industry observers estimate the 2003 crop will yield approximately 1.47 million tons of sugar, which was produced on more than 480,000 acres in the state. If those projections hold true, the gross farm income from sugar and molasses for 2003 will total nearly $360 million. Value-added income of approximately $240 million will bring the total economic contribution from Louisiana sugar production to approximately $600 million.
Sugarcane fields generally provide three to four years’ worth of crops harvested annually from mid-September through mid-January before they must be replanted.
In 2002, Louisiana farmers grew nearly 495,000 acres of sugarcane in 25 parishes. That same year, they harvested more than 455,000 acres with a total production of almost 1.3 million tons of sugar.
The gross farm income from the 2002 crop was $334.3 million for sugar and molasses, and value-added income was an additional $214 million for a total contribution of $548.3 million to the Louisiana economy.