It doesn't rival Disney World's popularity, but several
thousand people a year take tours through the cane fields and processing
plants of South Florida's sugar industry.
But a behind-the-scenes look at how sugar gets to America's tables could
be harder to book this season.
Budget cutbacks have led Clewiston-based U.S. Sugar Corp. to stop the
tours, spokeswoman Judy Sanchez said.
The last tour group visited U.S. Sugar in March, before the firm
downsized in September. The tours, which would have started up again last
month, cost $20 a person, but that didn't cover all the expenses, such as
a full-time employee who led the groups.
Employees' schedules had to be coordinated with the tours, so visitors
could see harvesting machines at work and watch the cane being transported
by railroad to the mill. They learned how robots lift 100-pound bags of
sugar onto forklifts.
"We won't be having any tours until the price of sugar
rebounds," Sanchez said.
That leaves only Florida Crystals offering a peek at its rice and sugar
operations in Belle Glade and South Bay. A third company, Sugar Cane
Growers of Florida, a cooperative of smaller growers based in Belle Glade,
never has provided tours, spokeswoman Barbara Miedema said.
The tours at both Florida Crystals and U.S. Sugar began in 1996 when
the penny-a-pound sugar tax that would have paid for an Everglades cleanup
effort was being debated. The proposed tax was defeated that year.
Florida Crystals' spokesman Jorge Dominicis said the field trips are
not run by the firm, but are handled by Aviv Corp., a Boca Raton-based
public relations firm.
Laurie Weiss, an Aviv employee who conducts the four-hour excursions,
estimates that 6,000 to 7,000 people -- often retirees, church, temple,
school or summer-camp groups from Palm Beach and Broward counties --
participate each year. Florida Crystals picked up the entire cost when the
trips began in 1996, but the charge is now $17 a person.
"We would have cut it out, but the tour company said people would
be willing to pay," Dominicis said.
Florida Crystals -- owned by the Cuban-born Fanjul family -- still
treats the groups to a Cuban lunch, typically rice, beans and picadillo, a
ground beef dish, at the company's corporate retreat house. Dominicis
estimates the lunches alone cost more than $40,000 a year, and said when
the company footed the complete bill, the cost was probably more than
$200,000.
The tours operate year-round, Weiss said. In summer, the rice is
growing, and in winter, the sugar-cane fields are being burned and cut.
"People love it. They see brown rice becoming white rice right
before their eyes. We go inside the rice mill, but not inside the sugar
mill, for safety reasons," Weiss said.
"It's educational. We tell them all about the sugar industry, the
Everglades and the environment," she said. "I try to make it
fun. How much fun is sugar and rice?" |