Why burn sugar cane fields

Sugar cane burning in Glades, Hendry and Palm Beach counties emits more than 2, tons of hazardous air pollutants per year. In some parts of Brazil and Australia, sugar growers have shifted to a greener approach; they cut away the leafy parts of sugar cane and use it to mulch fields. Sugar growers could also use the leafy cuttings as biofuel in processing plants that unlike the open fields have pollution control equipment.

Our hope is that this legal challenge will promote change in the industry and save the folks who live around the fields from their annual winter pollution nightmare. One thing we know for sure: Allowing a giant multinational corporation to conduct open burning on thousands of acres without Clean Air Act regulation is both unfair and unsafe.

David Guest worked at Earthjustice from to , as the managing attorney of the Florida regional office. His countless legal battles were, in one way or another, all about water. Our Stories. On the other we have government price-supported sugar growers in climate change denial, feeding the Legislature a sugar high of contributions while pumping black smoke into the atmosphere six months a year.

Be the hero. But hearing no acknowledgment of damage being done and seeing no effort at reform, and with the state of Florida showing no sign of protecting residents from this primitive and dangerous practice, we urge the Biden Administration to follow through on its pledges of climate repair and to ban the burns. The U. That would be a breath of fresh air. Home Editorials Letters Columns. In Thailand, sugarcane plantations are often relatively small private-owned fields next to each other.

This combination of factors — the decline in global sugar prices, a lack of machinery and higher harvesting costs for fresh sugarcane — reduces the effectiveness of any government air quality regulations. The financial burden on farmers means many have no option but to burn sugarcane to stay afloat, making poor air quality a persistent issue. The benefits of not burning sugarcane are evident to all — the higher sugar content value, better soil fertility, and air quality for surrounding communities.

But for sugarcane farmers, the price gained from sugarcane is the paramount concern, explained Chartchai Chotisan, a sugarcane scientist and leader at the OCSB Cane and Sugar Promotion Center in Udonthani. Regardless of farmers concerns, however, room for negotiation on the issue is shrinking with each year that passes.

In practice, as pressure increases, some farmers have stopped growing sugarcane altogether — meaning the smaller farmers have left and the large-scale farmers remain. Nutthapol pointed to these alternative uses for sugarcane, such as electricity and ethanol production, as a way that sugarcane millers have pivoted to maximise output from sugarcane amid growing financial pressures in recent years.

For Thailand, that means a specific focus on adding value and making derivative products out of commodities like sugarcane and cassava, which the kingdom is already producing in large quantities.

Part of the aim of this bioeconomy vision, besides greater environmental sustainability, is to stabilise commodity prices for agricultural crops, while also gaining some level of energy independence. However, the revenue from other byproducts not related to sugar, such as ethanol and electricity, are not shared with sugarcane farmers.

This leaves them with shrinking revenues from their core business, sugarcane sales, but cuts farmers off from the growing profits garnered from their crops associated with the bioeconomy. But why burn sugarcane fields in the first place? The dried leaves that accumulate around the base of the canes, known as trash, can be difficult to deal with, and industry advocates cite a number of reasons to burn. Leaf trash is highly flammable, and cane farmers say leaving the fields unburned means exposing harvesters and processors at risk for accidental fires.

But this quickly evens out and plants catch up to have the same yield by the end of the growing season. Ultimately, the choice to burn sugarcane comes down to money: leaving leaf trash attached to the canes means hauling more material to the processing plant. This requires more trips and more time in processing, which is expensive. Other green harvesting methods, like removing trash in the field, require additional equipment and attention, both of which cut into profits.

Florida might be a good place to grow sugarcane, but the combination of year-round tropical weather, cheap often heavily exploited labor and generous government support makes growing sugarcane in countries like Brazil even easier. To protect American sugar producers from losing out to lower-priced imported sugar, the government restricts imports, so even though we think of sugar as an inexpensive ingredient, American shoppers actually pay extra to support the domestic industry.

A lot of this money goes towards lobbying, explaining why the American sugar industry has been able to dodge regulation on burning when other countries have imposed tighter restrictions.

Environmentalists say the law allows the industry to continue burning sugarcane fields while capping the possible damages from challenges like the class action suit in progress. But it is true that transitioning to green harvesting takes money: countries that have eliminated burning generally did so with subsidies to help farmers afford new equipment or more expensive processing.