Louisiana industry thrives despite short growing season

With the monumental role that sugar has played in the agricultural/business/political history of Hawai'i, it seems like karma — fate — that the University of Hawai'i will play its first BCS game in the Sugar Bowl at New Orleans.

Living in Hawai'i, we all know the impact and story line of sugar in our Islands, but Louisiana, where legions of Hawai'i's football fans will travel to cheer and support the UH Warriors, is the oldest and most historic sugar producing area on the Mainland.

Sugar cane is being grown on nearly 450,000 acres in 23 Louisiana parishes (analogous to counties). Harvest is expected to exceed 14 million tons of cane, with an economic boom of $1.7 billion to the collective cane growers and raw-sugar factories of Louisiana. Approximately 27,000 people are employed in the production and processing of Louisiana sugar.

Sugar cane migrated to Louisiana in 1751 with Jesuit priests, who planted it close to where their church is on Baronne street in New Orleans. Within today's city limits of New Orleans were numerous sugar plantations. Because waterborne transportation was the primary means of moving sugar before the advent of railroads, nearly all the early sugar plantations were on navigable waterways.

The year 1795 heralds a landmark achievement by Etienne de Bore, who, with the expert help of Antoine Morin from Santa Domingo, first granulated sugar on a commercial scale at his wife's family property (now Audubon Park in New Orleans). His first crop of near 100 hogsheads (100,000 pounds) of sugar was sold at 12.5 cents a pound along with 50 cents per gallon of molasses, which netted de Bore a profit of $12,000.

With granulation, sugar could be easily transported to the consumer. Plantation owners rapidly converted their lands into cane fields, and cooperatives emerged to build the huge mills that refined the sugar. Huge fortunes were derived from sugar.

The early sugar-cane varieties grown in Louisiana were "Creole," from which de Bore granulated sugar, "Otaheite" and later "Louisiana Striped," "Louisiana Purple" and "D74."

Surviving the blows of disastrous production years during the Civil War, an epidemic (mosaic virus and seed cane rotting) during the 1920s, and 10-degree freezing temperatures afflicting the 1990 crop, the Louisiana sugar-cane industry has maintained productivity increases, attributed to improved cultivars, cultural practices, pest control and modern processing protocols.

After the fallow ground is disked and precision-graded to ensure proper drainage, the cane is vegetatively planted, using whole stalks rather than true seed. Individual stalks have several joints, each bearing a bud. In the fall season, rows of cane stalk are planted, with buds producing shoots the coming spring. During late summer, stalks mature, and in the fall, the first harvest of "plant cane" takes place. Since cane is a grass, more than one cutting can be harvested from each planting. In Louisiana, two to four annual cuttings ("ratoon crops") are machined before the land has to be fallowed and replanted.

All Louisiana sugar cane is mechanically harvested. Machines called soldier harvesters sever the cane tops, cut the stalks from their attachment to the row and position the cuttings in heaps. Cane heaps are burned to remove excess debris, and then cane loaders place the heaps in large wagons headed to the raw-sugar factories. Combine harvesters reduce already-burned stalks into short pieces ("billets"), while extractor fans remove part of the leaf trash. Billets are then transported to the factories.

Inside raw-sugar factories, cane is washed and crushed, with the juice boiled in evaporators and reduced to a thick syrup. The cane residue, or bagasse, is recycled as fuel to power the factories (bagasse is also used for paper, building boards, plastics, mulch and animal bedding). The thick syrup is again boiled under partial vacuum into sugar crystals ("raw sugar") and molasses (used in livestock feed). The raw sugar is bought by refiners, who melt the crystals, remove the impurities and color, resulting in our white or "refined" sugar.

Sugar in Louisiana is a remarkable agricultural achievement for an industry that faces a short growing season, frosts and freezes early in the harvest period and low-lying terrain exposed to natural disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

A victory for UH in the fabled Sugar Bowl in New Orleans will definitely taste "sweet."

Go Warriors!

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