By Carey Martin
TFB Radio Network Manager

A wide variety of crops are grown in the Lone Star State, and that includes sugarcane. The entire sugarcane crop is concentrated in a small area of the Rio Grande Valley, where a group of Texas farmers continue the 200-year-old tradition of growing this sweet crop.

One of those growers is Sam Sparks, owner and operator of SRS Farms near Mercedes.

He said the sugarcane harvest started back in October and has stretched through April.

“We’re down to the very end of our harvest season,” Sparks said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) Radio Network. “We should be wrapping up things in the next seven to 10 days.”

The sugarcane crop was a little short this year, with both acreage and quality lower than growers were hoping for.

“It was a mediocre crop. We actually had a short crop, down to about 35,000 harvestable acres,” Sparks said. “I think the sugar mill itself is going to produce around 1.1 million tons of raw sugar, which is a little below what we would like to see. We would like to be closer to that 1.5 or 1.6 million tons of raw sugar.”

Sugarcane in Texas is grown within a 30-mile radius of the state’s only sugar mill, Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, Inc., in Santa Rosa. The mill processes the sugar for transport to refineries located in Louisiana.

Together, farmers and the mill are working to make Texas a little sweeter.

Watch how sugarcane is harvested in this TFB video.