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Hurricanes Postpone Sweet Harvest

Posted on: Thursday, 6 October 2005, 00:00 CDT

By Tony Vindell, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas

Oct. 4--SANTA ROSA -- The Rio Grande Valley's sugar cane harvest, originally scheduled to start Monday, has been postponed until next week.

And, yes, blame hurricanes Katrina and Rita for this, too.

A team that was putting together a new transportation project for the sugar mill had to leave for Houston after Rita hit just east of the area. They will not return until late this week.

However, sugar cane growers are optimistic about the 2005-06 season. There are two reasons for this: they should be able to market all their product since there will be a shortfall of production, especially in Louisiana; and less sugar on the market usually means higher prices.

In Louisiana, which produces more than 35 percent of the country's sugar cane, many sugar cane fields remain flooded with salt water caused by the hurricanes' tidal surge.

It's that salt water that is killing the plants from the bottom up.

Herman Waguespack, an agronomist with the American Sugar League in Thibodaux, La., said that the two hurricanes impacted 100 percent of the state's sugar cane.

He said Katrina blew down about 75 percent of the cane crop and some fields are still 8 feet under water.

"It looks like if new lakes were created in some places," Waguespack said. "We still have a lot of standing water."

In spite, of that, he said the annual harvest started Monday on some patches of land and will continue until next year.

Waguespack said that in Louisiana the harvest goes on 24 hours a day until it's complete.

"They are harvesting and the yields have been mixed," he said. "We will continue assessing the damages caused by the hurricanes."

Waguespack said a lot of the sugar cane that was blown down is harvestable, but sugar quality and yields suffer under those conditions.

Also, only one -- Imperial Sugar -- of Louisiana's two sugar refineries is in operation. The other, Domino, just happens to be the one where Valley sugar cane is refined.

Waguespack said that because of the problems caused to the sugar cane industry in Louisiana, it's unlikely that the state will meet its sugar cane allotment set at more than 1.2 million tons.

In addition to Texas, which has an allotment of 190,553 tons of sugar cane, and Louisiana, the other sugar cane-producing states are Florida and Hawaii.

Humberto Vela, a spokesman for the RGV Sugar Growers Inc., said area growers should be able to market their product this season without a problem.

However, area growers can't produce more than the annual allotment.

But Phillip Hayes, a spokesman with the American Sugar Alliance, said growers could benefit if sugar prices increase.

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To see more of the Valley Morning Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.valleystar.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, Texas)

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