Despite a growing season marred by both freeze and drought, Florida’s big sugar producers reaped hefty crops this year. Both Palm Beach-based Florida Crystals and The Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida in Belle Glade reported record production for the harvest that ended in March. U.S. Sugar in Clewiston posted its third-best harvest. This at a time when sugar prices are on the rise—selling for between 21 cents and 22 cents a pound, up from a low of 16 cents a pound last year.

The growers say that although cane was damaged by January’s freeze, the fact that it was followed by four to six weeks of unseasonably cool temperatures served to "refrigerate" the cane and delay the onset of decay. That gave the companies time to harvest before serious damage could set in.

"Generally after a freeze, you begin to lose a lot of sugar," says Jorge Dominicis, a spokesman for Florida Crystals, which produced 800,000 tons, up from 730,000 tons in 2000.

The Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative also had a record harvest, producing 395,868 tons, up from 356,295 tons in 2000.

U. S. Sugar in Clewiston did not break last season’s record crop of 856,000 tons but managed to produce 815,000 tons, spokeswoman Judy Sanchez says. "We’re coming off three record seasons." If not for the freeze, Sanchez says, "we might have seen a spectacular year."

As for the drought, which has sugar farmers getting by on about 30 percent of their usual water supply, Dominicis says the effect probably won’t be known until next year’s harvest. But, he says, sugar cane is generally more drought tolerant than the rest of the state’s agriculture. "Sugar cane is actually a very hardy crop," he says.

Continued drought, however, will take its toll, the growers say. "We might be looking at an extremely damaged crop next year," says Sanchez.