Rodent infestation blamed for small sugar crop in Valley

SANTA ROSA - The harvest of one of the smallest sugar crops in recent seasons is under way and mill officials are predicting they will see a decline in this year's sugar yield.

The harvest season is ending this week and the small crop is being blamed on a number of factors, but the main culprit is a rodent infestation.

Mice, rats and other rodents have devastated the sugar cane with their voracious appetite for the sweet crop.

"Mice and rats have been taking a toll on the sugar cane crop," Randy Rolando, a veteran sugar mill employee who is now an accountant there, said. "They showed up in early January and went on eating until the end of the season."

The rodents chew the bottom of the cane causing it to rot. Then the rotting cane attracts parasites like the Mexican rice borer, which is one of the primary pests of sugar cane in the Rio Grande Valley.

The borer chews its way into a stalk leaving a series of tunnels, reduces the plant's productivity and causes it to break during harvesting.

Steve Bearden, president and chief executive officer of the Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, predicts a decline of some 30,000 tons of raw sugar after the season ends.

"We estimated this year's yield at about 150,000 tons of sugar," he said. "It has not been a good year for us."

Bearden said the sugar mill averages about 180,000 tons of raw sugar every year.

He said the early slight freeze in March 2007, followed by rain and excessive heat impacted the sugar cane crop.

"Then the rats showed up in January and February," Bearden said. "In some places, the rats and mice damaged about 30 percent of the sugar cane per acre. In some places, it was worse."

He said the damage caused by the rodents has been pretty much even across the Valley's three-county sugar cane producing region.
Bearden said there was plenty of rain in March and that probably helped the rodent population boom.

But since October, the region has had little or no rain and as the rodents' food source declined, they moved into sugar cane fields to eat.

Fighting both the rodents and the rice borer is a time- and money-consuming affair.

The borer is fought with a pesticide application. But combating mice and rats require a different approach like setting bait or using poison.

"We could use poison but we want to minimize its effects on the environment," Rolando said. "I also understand that rodent infestations are cyclical."

Also, more rodents attract predators like coyotes, bobcats and birds of prey.

Valley farmers grow about 40,000 acres of sugar cane a year, and replant some 8,000 acres with new cane every year.

But for the last season, they replanted some 5,000-plus acres because of weather factors.

In an average year, a season produces about 160,000 tons of raw sugar and 60,000 tons of molasses.

But in the 2000-01 season, the industry yielded a bumper crop of 200,000 tons of raw sugar, resulting in more than $84.7 million in gross receipts from sugar and molasses, records show.

By contrast, its gross receipts for the 2004-05 season were a little more than $66.8 million.

Owned by a cooperative of some 125 farmers, the industry contributes to about 10 percent of the Valley's total annual gross agriculture receipts.

In addition to pests and weather conditions, the industry is being impacted by world sugar prices.

The mill sold its raw sugar at an average of 21.5 cents per pound during the last season, compared to the 20.5 per pound it should average this season.

A drop of 1 cent on 100,000 tons of raw sugar translates into $3.6 million in loss in income.

But Bearden said the cooperative won't know how much the industry will be impacted until later in the year, or in what he calls the repair part of the season: when they take everything concerning the mill operation into consideration.

"One thing I can tell you," he added, "is that this is not a good season."