U.S. Sugar is a privately owned agricultural business based in Clewiston, Florida. The company farms over 230,000 acres of land in the counties of Hendry, Glades and Palm Beach. It is the largest producer of sugar cane in the United States by volume, producing over 700,000 tonnes per year. The company is also a large producer of refined sugar, sweet corn and oranges.
The company is one of the largest job providers in the Glades region of Florida, employing more than 2,500.
Video U.S. Sugar
History
On April 29, 1931, industrialist and philanthropist Charles Stewart Mott purchased farmland from another sugarcane company operating near Clewiston, Florida. The company, then known as the Southern Sugar Corporation, had operations south of Lake Okeechobee near the lake's southern tip. Following the company's acquisition, Mott renamed it the United States Sugar Corporation. Mott invested his own dollars into the company, helping it to overcome issues with drainage and to diversify the types of sugarcane grown. By 1941, Mott helped U.S. Sugar turn a profit. By 1951, the company was producing 1,500 tons of sugarcane per day. In 1962, the company opened the Bryant Sugar House, which at the time was the largest and most advanced sugarcane processing mill in the world. The mill had a capacity of 5,000 tons of sugarcane per day. In the 1980s, Florida became the largest sugarcane-producing state and U.S. Sugar was the largest producer. Under the leadership of new chairman Charles Stewart Harding Mott, the company diversified its portfolio with cattle and citrus and also purchased South Bay Growers, a leading provider of winter vegetables. In 1994, U.S. Sugar launched Southern Gardens Citrus, with a $100 million-facility that was one of the most efficient and environmentally-sensitive juice facilities in the world. The facility's second phase was completed in 1996, increasing the company's production to 19 million boxes of fruit per season. In 1998, U.S. Sugar opened its state of the art sugar refinery that could initially produce 540,000 tons of refined sugar products per year. To date, the Clewiston refinery is the newest and most technologically-advanced facility in the United States.
Maps U.S. Sugar
Environment
On 24 June 2008, Florida's Governor, Charlie Crist, announced the state was in negotiations to buy 187,000 acres (760 km2) of land and all of its manufacturing and production facilities for an estimated $1.7 billion from the company as part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Under the proposals, the company would continue to farm the land for the next six years and convert the land back to its original natural marshland state. In November 2008, the agreement was revised to offer $1.34 billion, allowing sugar mills in Clewiston to remain in production. Critics of the revised plan say that it ensures sugarcane will be grown in the Everglades for at least another decade.
In October 2010 the company sold 26,800 acres of land to the South Florida Water Management District for the "River of Grass" Restoration Project.
U.S. Sugar powers its facilities with renewable resources - the residual sugarcane fiber after juice is extracted, known as bagasse. Bagasse is a clean, fibrous biofuel that results from the sugarcane extraction process. Every ton of bagasse powers the equivalent of 50 gallons of fuel oil.
A boilerproduces steam during the milling process by burning bagasse. Steam is co-generated into electricity on-site. In essence, each year's cane crop provides power for both the sugar factory and U.S. Sugar's refinery operations.[7]
U.S. Sugar's farmers have been integral to the success of sending cleaner water to the Everglades since 1994. The company, along with other Glades-area farmers, worked with the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) to develop soil and water cleansing techniques called best management practices (BMPs). These techniques include holding farm runoff on company property, laser leveling fields, and the growth of foliage along drainage canals bordering farms to help absorb nutrients. The BMP program has helped to yield tremendous success. According to the South Florida Management District, in 2017, Everglades Agricultural Area farmers achieved a 70 percent annual reduction in phosphorus - nearly three times higher than the 25 percent required by the 1994 Everglades Forever Act. Additionally, more than 95 percent of the Everglades is meeting the stringent 10 parts per billion clean water standard for phosphorus.
Despite claims made by environmental activists over air quality, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Glades communities such as Clewiston enjoy some of the cleanest air quality in the state of Florida. In its 2017 rankings, the foundation lists Hendry County in the lower third of counties experiencing the worst incidences of particulate matter in the air.
Economy
According to the Florida Sugarcane League, sugarcane farming has a $3.2 billion impact and supports more than 12,500 jobs. With more than 2,500 employees, U.S. Sugar is one of the "largest agribusiness employers in the Everglades region."
See also
- South Central Florida Express, Inc. the railway run by the company.
- Draining and development of the Everglades
- Everglades
- H-2 Worker
- Restoration of the Everglades
- Sugar cane mill
References
External links
- U.S. Sugar Website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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