SUGAR-CANE

Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida is a vertically integrated agricultural enterprise that harvests, transports and processes sugarcane grown primarily in Palm Beach County, Florida and markets the raw sugar and blackstrap molasses through the Florida Sugar and Molasses Exchange.

The Cooperative is made up of 45 grower-owners who produce sugarcane on approximately 70,000 acres of some of the most fertile farmland in America, located in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA). Sugarcane grown by Cooperative members is harvested, transported and processed. The raw sugar is then marketed to one of the ASR Group's sugar refineries. The Cooperative produces more than 350,000 tons of raw sugar annually.

GROWING AND HARVESTING
Commercial sugarcane is planted from stalk cuttings and placed in furrows about five feet apart. After approximately 12 months, the mature sugarcane is ready for harvest. Growers average four harvests each season from a single planting. Harvesting season lasts from late October through mid-March, approximately 150 days. The first step in the harvesting process is the highly controlled pre-harvest burning of the cane fields. Each field burn is individually permitted by the State of Florida Division of Forestry. Farmers are allowed to burn only when climatic conditions permit. Burning causes excessive leaves to be removed, preparing the way for the mechanical harvesters and then the processing of the cane. An added benefit to this practice is that it reduces the need for applications of pesticides. The Cooperative harvests an average of 500 acres per day using combine-style mechanical harvesters. In a typical harvesting unit, three or four harvesters operate in tandem with six to eight tractors and strings of wagons. The harvesters contain rotating knives, which cut through the sugarcane at the base of the stalk. The cane tops are also cut off by rotating knives and excess foliage is removed by giant extraction fans. As the sugarcane passes through the harvester, it is cut into 12-inch lengths and put into field wagons. The sugarcane is then hauled to a nearby transfer station and loaded onto semi-trailers for delivery to Glades Sugar House for grinding. Each semi contains about 19-tons of sugarcane. A load arrives at the mill site about every 45 seconds during daylight hours. Approximately 1,200 loads are delivered daily to keep the processing facility at peak capacity during harvest season. More than 61,000 acres are harvested each season, producing more than 2.4 million tons of sugarcane. Processing The Glades Sugar House operates 24-hours a day throughout the 150-day annual harvest. The mill grinds as much as 26,000 tons of sugarcane per day or three million tons each season. One ton of sugarcane produces approximately 220 pounds of raw sugar. Experienced operators use technology-based equipment to separate the harvested raw cane into sugar, water, molasses and bagasse (the pulp, rind and fiber of the sugarcane stalk). Every part of the sugarcane stalk is used. Within 24 hours of harvesting, each load of sugarcane is cut and processed into raw sugar. Along the way the high-tech mill uses all of the plant’s by-products. Even the fibrous wood pulp that remains after the sugar cane has been repeatedly pressed, crushed and shredded is not wasted. This pulp, called bagasse, fuels the mill’s boilers, creating steam-generated electricity to power the mill. By using bagasse as a fuel, the Cooperative saves the equivalent of 31 million gallons of fossil fuel each year. The water that makes up 80 percent of the cane stalk is also recycled and re-used within the process. Combined, all of the state’s sugar producers save 113 million gallons of fuel oil or 2.1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity each year.[8] Processing involves separating the natural sugar juice from the stalk then concentrating the juice to produce raw sugar crystals and blackstrap molasses, which is sold primarily as animal feed. During the 2010-11 harvest season, the Cooperative produced more than 260,000 tons of raw sugar and 16 million gallons of black strap molasses.

MARKETING, REFINING AND BRANDS

.The Cooperative’s raw sugar is marketed and shipped through the Florida Sugar and Molasses Exchange located in the Port of Palm Beach, Florida. The raw sugar is sold to American Sugar Refining, Inc., where it is refined to produce white table sugar.American Sugar Refining has refineries in Yonkers, New York; Baltimore, Maryland; Chalmette, Louisiana; Crockett, California; Toronto, Canada; and Veracruz, Mexico. These refineries market more than 4.25 million tons of refined sugar a year.American Sugar Refining markets its products through Domino Foods, Inc., a wholly owned Cooperative subsidiary serving five key markets: grocery, food service, industrial, specialty sweetener and export. The products are marketed under the brand names Domino, C&H, Jack Frost, Florida Crystals and numerous private labels.