FARM TO PLATE: HALLOWEEN TREATS

By: Karen Macdonald

Starting at dusk tomorrow, 41.1 million children across the U.S. will dress up in costumes and knock on their neighbors’ doors asking for treats. Whether you find Cinderella or Superman at your door, you’re likely to be handing over some candy – 74 percent of us are planning to support the seasonal sweet craving this year, doling out chocolate, candy corn and other confections to the ghouls and goblins on our doorsteps.

The main ingredient in all this Halloween candy is sugar, a product that comes from two different groups of U.S. farmers: sugar beet growers in the north and sugar cane growers in the south.

Richard Benzel and his brothers produce 18,000 tons of sugar beets a year on their third generation Montana farm, a crop that yields just over 3,000 tons of sugar. Much of a sugar beet is water, and once the sugar has been removed and the water pressed out, the remaining plant material is used as cattle feed.

Down in Louisiana, Charles Landry and his brothers also work together on their family operation to raise 2,400 acres of sugar cane. Their hundred-day harvest season is filled with long days as they work with their employees to cut and gather the cane before the first frost and deliver it fresh to the sugar mill.

Sugar cane harvesting is time sensitive because the cane needs to be processed within 24 hours of harvest, so growers work in close coordination with sugar mills like the Louisiana Sugar Cane Cooperative. LaSuCa carefully schedules deliveries from all of its grower-members so that each delivers freshly harvested cane every day, giving each an equal opportunity to provide optimal, sugar-rich cane.

Though the crops are different, the sugar from sugar beets and sugar cane is the same, and together these two groups of farmers produce 8.1 million tons of sugar a year.

This Halloween, whether you’re reaching into the bowl of leftovers or diving into your child’s haul – a practice admitted by 81 percent of parents – take a moment to appreciate the hard work and dedication of our sugar beet and sugar cane farmers.

– See more at: http://www.farmcreditnetwork.com/newsroom/blog/article/farm-to-plate-halloween-treats#sthash.QNu25qbD.dpuf