Sugar growers are facing major problems if they don't get some rain soon. The severe drought threatens crops that are already struggling to survive. Jason Langdale grew up in the cane fields just outside of Clewiston. He's the third generation of proud farmers. "When you farm it's a gamble no matter what you do. You go through frost, freeze, drought, flood. It's always feast or famine," he said. But for acres, his thirsty sugar cane crop is dying. "You have your good years and bad years. But as long as I've been doing this, this is about as bad as I've seen it get," he said. No rain, and strict water rules has the irrigation canals running dangerously low. "We're currently getting less than 50 percent of the water that we would normally get for the crop. And at this point in time we're in a worse situation than we were in 2001," said Judy Sanchez with Clewiston-based US Sugar Corporation. That year, a severe drought dried up sugar production by 30 percent for US Sugar Corporation. State wide the sugar industry lost $100-200 million. "If we don't get water soon, it won't just be a production loss, it could be a crop loss and that could be catastrophic," said Sanchez. With an eye to the sky, all Jason Langdale can do now, is pray for rain. "Couple hours a day, everyday... 6 or 7 days a week you're looking at it all the time," he said. US Sugar Corp. will not know how much damage has been done until harvest this fall. If the entire crop is lost, it's not likely to affect sugar prices because of the way the market is set up. But it will have a severe economic impact to local growers, US Sugar Corp., and the sugar industry in Florida. The sugar industry is a 3.1 billion dollar business each year and it provides 20,000 jobs in Florida.
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