Florida’s sugar cane farmers are being asked to consider not setting fire to their fields prior to harvest. The age-old practice produces smoke that is a nuisance and potential health risk for nearby poor communities.
In this Nov. 4, 2019 photo, Kaniyah Patterson stands in front of a sugar cane field behind her home in Pahokee, Fla. Patterson says that smoke from sugar cane burns trigger her asthma. For generations, Florida's sugar cane farmers have legally set fire to their fields prior to harvest. But the smoke is a nuisance for predominantly poor communities near the fields.
For generations, Florida’s sugar cane farmers have legally set fire to their fields prior to the harvest, leaving only the cane, a practice that reducesIn the Glades community alone, home to more than 40,000 people, cane growers burned more than 1.5 million acres of sugar cane between 2008 and 2018 — a land mass about the size of Delaware — according to state data.
But an analysis last year by the American Lung Association and data compiled by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection both concluded that air quality in Palm Beach County was up to code. U.S. Sugar, one of the companies listed in the lawsuit, stands by the practice of burning. It contends that its methods are safe, closely monitored and highly regulated, and that the overall well-being of its workers and the greater community is “vitally important” to the company.
In the past, the company has said those who oppose sugar field burning are attacking the very industry that supports the local economy. But Phillips said she believes green harvesting would be healthier while potentially bringing more jobs to the poor area.
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