The mammoth Domino Sugar Chalmette Refinery in Arabi has shaped St. Bernard Parish for more than half of its 117-year history, surviving fires, a deadly explosion and devastating flooding.
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This National Farmer’s Day, we celebrate all the sugarbeet and sugarcane farmers who work tirelessly to produce America’s sugar.
October marks not only spooky season, but it’s also harvest season for both sugarbeet and sugarcane farmers. While families across the country prepare for a Halloween filled with sweet treats, our family farmers are hard at work producing the key ingredient that makes it all possible.
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The Louisiana Sugarcane harvest is underway and the state’s Agriculture Commissioner, Mike Strain, says it is going well. Heading into the season there was a concern about the pasture mealybug, an invasive species first identified in Louisiana last year. Strain says the small, white pest likes to drink sugar.
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Through the months of October to December, farmers across the state begin their harvest of sugarcane. The crop has grown for the last 200 years in Louisiana, becoming a staple in its agriculture and economy.
Director of LSU AgCenter’s Audubon Sugar Institute, Dr. Gillian Eggleston, said the harvest time has varied in recent years due to the crops’ success.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development is awarding nearly $75,000 to the South Central Planning and Development Commission.
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U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Louisiana State Director Troy Romero announced the agency is awarding a $74,975 grant to South Central Planning and Development Commission (SCP&DC) to provide technical assistance to strengthen the sugarcane bagasse economy.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced sugar loan rates and marketing provisions for fiscal year 2027, along with reallocations for fiscal year 2026. USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation provides loans to sugar beet and sugarcane processors, allowing sugar to be stored after harvest and marketed later when prices improve.
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On a Monday morning at a sugarcane farm in Port Allen, LSU AgCenter entomologist Blake Wilson and two student workers pushed through green and yellow cane stalks on a field’s border and into the interior rows. There, they found plants that were completely brown.
This farm, and many others throughout the state, has been infested with the pasture mealybug, an invasive species first identified by Louisiana crop consultants last year.
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The Louisiana sugarcane industry is on track for another record season, but growers are still watching a pest that has become a major concern across the region.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and Gov. Jeff Landry toured the Louisiana Sugar Cane Cooperative in St. Martinville Friday (Sept. 25) as part of a closer look at the state’s sugarcane industry and the challenges facing growers.
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The sweet smell of sugarcane fills the air along Bayou Lafourche as the harvest begins in south Louisiana. But for growers, their biggest harvest-time expense, diesel, has hit a record high.
Diesel is hovering around $6.50 per gallon, up about $3 from this time last year.
On the Naquin family farm near Thibodaux, a combine cut the first cane of a three-month harvest on Tuesday, and Craig Naquin said the family is getting slammed by the cost.
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Industry experts are projecting supply uncertainty for the beet and cane sugar crops for fiscal year 2026-27. The primary contributing factors to this uncertainty include drought-related reductions in sugarbeet planted acreage, relatively low sugar prices, high input costs and uncertainty about sugar demand, potentially stemming from the growing popularity of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
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The Louisiana sugarcane industry is on track for another record season, but growers are still watching a pest that has become a major concern across the region.
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In Louisiana, 2026 has definitely been the year of the insect. Now this doesn’t mean we’ve had widespread yield losses and control failures, but instead we’ve seen insects do things we don’t normally expect. South American Rice Miner showed up pretty consistently in most fields and didn’t go away.
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A priest blessed this year’s sugarcane crop at Gonsoulin Farms outside New Iberia, a tradition that marks the official start of the grinding season.
Fr. Keith Landry of Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church used holy water for the blessing on Friday, Sept. 25, as those gathered prayed for a safe and bountiful harvest. A drone was also used to spray hard-to-reach areas of the field during the ceremony.
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U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins visited Louisiana’s sugarcane industry Friday, touring the Louisiana Sugar Cane Cooperative (LASUCA) in St. Martin Parish and meeting with Gov. Jeff Landry, Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry Mike Strain, Louisiana Farm Bureau President Richard Fontenot and industry leaders to discuss the state’s agricultural economy and challenges facing farmers.
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