If you have been anywhere near a cane field lately, you can feel it. The trucks are on the road before daylight, steam from the mills is back in the air and harvest season is officially underway. After a long summer of waiting, planning and watching the weather,…
Louisiana sugarcane grower Travis Medine approached the 101st annual Agricultural Outlook Forum, hosted by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, D.C., with mixed feelings. “It’s difficult to leave because you’re always thinking about what…
If there’s one thing that transcends borders, languages and generations, it’s the shared experience of farming. That bond was evident when Kevin and Kayla Veenstra, a farming couple from Alberta, Canada, swapped the icy grip of a Canadian winter for an unseasonably…
As we move into the holiday season, we have much for which to be thankful when we look at the broader picture of the Louisiana sugarcane industry. The final report for 2023 shows that the industry remains strong as it enters its third century of sugar production….
“Farming is a lifestyle that put me in touch with nature, which I see as a privilege.” The average size of the Louisiana sugarcane farm is 1,000 acres so that makes Gene Adolph’s farm an average-sized farm. But Gene the farmer? Gene the farmer is anything but average….
Grower Profile: The Vallot Family “They’ve seen the Vallots work hard all these years.” It’s fair to say the Grosse Isle community of Vermilion Parish is the “country” and it’s where the Vallot family has been farming sugarcane for five…
Al Landry Jr. has been chosen to serve as King Sucrose LXXVIII at the 2019 Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival. In the eyes of Alton (Al) Landry Jr., all the past kings of the Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival are in the pantheon of sugarcane industry leaders. “I’ve always…
Sugarcane producer Paul Schexnayder doesn’t call a lot of attention to his farming operation in Pointe Coupee Parish. He’s just concentrating on getting the most sugar out of the land. Like many farmers, he keeps a low profile and seemed a bit surprised that the…
The Lacours of Pointe Coupee George and cour; Gertrude Lacour Hawkins Pointe Coupee grower George Lacour is essentially a first-generation sugarcane farmer. Yes, his family has been in farming for generations in Louisiana but George only began to grow sugarcane…