Jeanerette sugar farmer Frank Minvielle said parts of his crop that got rain early in the season look good and areas where there was little rain are still pretty short.
“Cane is capable of growing an inch a day,” he said. “With the recent mix of rains, sunshine and hot temperatures, we could see the short cane catch up before grinding.”
  
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“Last year was a fairly good year for many of us,” he said. “If I had to guess I would say this year will be behind probably around 10 percent of volume coming out of the fields.”
Craig Caillier, president and CEO of M.A. Patout and Son said he thinks this year’s crop will be better than average but farmers are more concerned about affording high input costs.
“Many growers are considering not planting at all this year as a result of the input costs,” Caillier said. “We have a great Farm Bill. As a result we can experience better pricing in near and long term but that still doesn’t make up for higher input costs.”
Minvielle said to ship his crop by barge to the mill will cost him $1 million more than last year with the barge company’s fuel adjustment costs.
“Normally we can ship our sugar with hardly any problem at all,” he said. “We can’t pass these input increases on to anybody. We can’t include a fuel adjustment amount in our sugar. They would laugh at us.”
Minvielle also said the recent oil spill in the Mississippi River has many barges tied up and local farmers could be forced to send their crop to mills by truck. He said it would take approximately 80 trucks to move the volume of sugarcane that one barge could, which would also be more expensive.
Grinding will could get a late start this year Minvielle said, with farmers giving the short cane a little more time to grow in the fields. He predicts grinding will start by the end of September.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it was increasing refined sugar imports because estimates for this year’s crop showed the probability of a shortage. Increasing imports generally lowers the price local farmers get for their crop. Caillier is disappointed with the announcement.
“The import increase called for by the USDA is a result from pressure from the users like big candy manufacturers who thought the price was too high,” Caillier said. “From our standpoint we think the announcement was premature and the USDA was in error for making that announcement because supplies are available. Every buyer in the U.S. can get sugar if they want it.”
Caillier said the USDA presumed a shortage based only on estimates at a time when the crop has not even begun to be harvested.
“Our crops may be better than the USDA is predicting,” he said. “And it will affect the price growers get with the increase of imports.”
There has been some recent good news for Louisiana sugarcane farmers however.
U.S. Sugars, a Florida company, stopped production, donating its land to Everglades restoration.
Caillier said this is potentially good news for Louisiana, allowing farmers to get more of their sugar into the market.
“This development could allow us to produce more sugar,” he said. “But, at this point, no one is looking to plant extra land because of the high input costs.”
The Louisiana State University AgCenter also released new cane varieties this year, which Caillier said was good news for everyone.
“There are certain varieties that are showing signs of a high rate of smut,” he said. “With more varieties released, growers have more options as to what varieties they plant and these new varieties are working out well for us.”
Minvielle said some varieties of sugarcane are more susceptible to smut, which is a spore that attacks the growing buds of sugarcane covering the crop with a black powder and stunting the growth of the plant.
Despite current hardship, Minvielle, like many of his fellow sugar cane farmers, remains optimistic.
“We’re going to make it,” he said. “We have been here for 100 years, and we aren’t going anywhere now.”
Comments
Tom wrote on Aug 19, 2008 10:04 AM: