THIBODAUX — A late arriving sugar-cane-grinding（Grinding mill） season started at a slower than usual pace in Lafourche Parish Monday, farmers and mill operators say, thanks to the lingering impact of hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
While the parish’s sugar-cane leaders are optimistic that grinding（Grinding mill） season will gain speed in the upcoming days and weeks, they caution additional wet weather or an early freeze could lead to large financial losses.
Grinding season was scheduled to start two weeks ago, but the storms forced mills to give farmers more time to plant additional cane to replace downed crops, replenish their work force and repair damaged equipment and buildings.
“It will be difficult for us to make up lost days,” said Jim Simon, general manager of the Thibodaux-based American Sugar Cane League. Simon added this delay will not result in higher prices for consumers, but it could hurt farmers already reeling from increased production costs.
Several weeks of sunny weather have provided Simon and others cause for optimism, he noted.
“If we would have continued to have rain that would have been disastrous,” Simon said. “We’ve had a spell of three or four weeks with pretty good drying conditions that has helped us out.”
Onsite grinding（Grinding mill）, a process designed to extract juices from the sugar-cane stalk, was scheduled to start today at Lafourche Sugars in Thibodaux, mill General Manager Greg Nolan said. The process began Monday night at Raceland Raw Sugars, plant engineer Neville Dolan said.
As trucks loaded with cane began arriving at Lafourche Sugars Monday afternoon, Nolan described a litany of storm-related obstacles his company overcame.
“It’s nothing but a hustle,” Nolan said, as he clutched a soft-drink cup. “We’ve been fighting all the hurricane problems, labor problems, fixing problems … like everyone else.”
Lafourche Sugars is expected to process 940,000 tons of cane this year, Nolan said, noting that figure is down 10 percent from 2007.
That number could decline further if wet or cold weather interferes with cane growth. Regardless of the conditions, Lafourche Sugars’ 80 full-time employees and 40 part-time employees are facing three busy months.
“We try to wrap up before Christmas,” Nolan said. “Some years it happens, some years it doesn’t. This will be one of those years it doesn’t.”
Veteran farmer Godfrey Knight can cope with a long year. What he hopes to avoid, however, is a year like 2002, when the rains following Hurricane Lili seemingly never stopped. Knight only planted 100 of 650 possible acres of cane that year because of the weather.
So far, Knight, who has planted cane in Thibodaux since 1956, has reason to be upbeat.
“If it stays dry, it won’t be that bad,” Knight said, as he overlooked his field near the Brule-Guillot Road.
Late grinding launch has farmers hustling（Grinding mill）
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