7 Things I Learned About Sugar Cane Farming

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to visit a Palm Beach County, Florida, sugar cane farm with the Florida Sugar Cane League, which hosts tours to connect non-farming residents with local farmers. I joined a group of seniors from a residential neighborhood in the southern part of the county.

I’d never seen sugar cane before, so the trip was eye opening for me. While this doesn’t begin to cover everything I learned, here are seven things I discovered about sugar cane.

1. Palm Beach County leads the nation in sugar cane farming.

When I think of Palm Beach, beautiful beaches and expensive shopping come to mind. And while that’s true, Palm Beach County is also the leading grower of sugar cane, fresh sweet corn and bell peppers in the nation. It’s one of the ten largest agricultural counties in the country.

2. Sugar cane is in the grass family.

The perennial crop is planted in 40-acre square fields. The plant reminded me of bamboo. Stalks are laid in field rows and covered with a thin layer of soil. Eyes on the stalk sprout, much like the eyes of potatoes. The plant stays in the field for 3-4 years until the sugar content gets too low. Then it’s plowed up, a cover crop — often rice — is planted, and the cycle begins again the next year.

3. The (flying) night crew takes care of pests.

Rodents love chewing on sugar cane, especially young stalks. A 4-H’er started a project to build nesting boxes for barn owls on this farm since there are no trees around the edges of fields. Now all fields have boxes on the corners to encourage these natural predators of their largest pest. There are even cameras in some boxes so you can watch owls in action. 

4. All fields are burned just before harvest.

Burning gets rid of any natural debris. Sugar cane stalks are 75% water, so the stalk doesn’t burn. The Environmental Protection Agency monitors air quality during the burns.

5. The harvest season lasts 8 months.

Sugar cane is harvested 24 hours a day from October through May. Farmers in Florida grow a different variety of sugar cane than what is grown in Texas and Louisiana. Florida farmers grow more than half of the U.S. sugar cane crop.

6. All sugar cane is moved by rail.

Each train car holds one acre of sugar cane. Between 850-1,000 rail cars move the crop to one of three sugar manufacturing mills every day. The rail cars and track are owned by US Sugar. 

7. Sugar cane is a zero-waste crop.

Molasses is extracted from the sugar in the mill and used in animal feed, to de-ice roads out west and for other uses. Bagasse, a byproduct of the milling process, is used as a biofuel to power the mills and almost 35,000 homes. This organic plant material is used as fertilizer, to make compostable plates, and construction materials.