SUGAR IN THE EVERGLADES

1
SUGAR IN THE EVERGLADES

• By Alex Hudgins

2
Sugar Cain/ Beets

• Sugar Cain
• Labor intensive
• Ready for harvest in 18 months
• Burnt, what is left over is cut and taken to be
  processed

3
Continued

• Leaves striped
• Cane mashed
• Mash pressed for sugar juice
• Pulp sold as fuel
• Lime added to juice and boiled to remove
  impurities
• Bleached with sulfur dioxide
• Vacuumed, leaving crystals and molasses
• Separated molasses sold for baking or Rum
• Sugar sent to refinery

4
Beets

• Similar to Sugar Cain, but grown in more
  temperate climates
• Molasses is too hard to process

5
Floridas Sugar

• Grown in Florida since 1920s
• -next to citrus most economically important to
  Fl
• 450,000 acres are grown annually around lower
  half of Lake Okeechobee
• - 17,000,000 tons of sugar cane
• - 2,000,000 tons of raw sugar
• - 100,000,000 gallons of molasses

6
Article

• Examines the history of Floridas Sugar
• What effects the industry has on the Everglades
• The governments involvement
• A proposed remedy

7
Floridas assault on Everglades

• Began in 1918 with new rail road
• Early farmers found the terrain extreemly
  difficult
• -scarcity of trace elements, burned down to the
  underlying rock, winter freeze, and inadequate
  drainage

8
continued

• The article argues that farming the Everglades
  should have been forgotten because it was not
  economically viable
• Govt. steeped in
• - Hoover Dike
• - Drainage system

9
What happened to the Glades?

• Since the peat soil is mostly water
• - saltwater intrusion, soil fires, habitat loss,
  and drastically reduced soil depth
• - in 13 years of farming, Moore Haven
  experienced about a 50 loss of soil depth.

10
Pros n Cons

• Only positive economically according to the
  article

11
Government

• Made farming possible
• - created the environment
• Created a protectionist regime
• - tariffs and loans
• Brought workers

12

• In 2001 the US sugar was 21.16 cents/ lb
• - the rest of the world was 7.65

13
Conclusion

• If the protectionist regime would drop all of its
  support, the everglades could begin to heal.