ERATH, La. — It has been a hard year of extreme heat and drought for sugar cane farmers, which has affected crops and harvests.
"To say a field of sugarcane will not be harvested because of height has hardly ever been heard of even in drought years in the back. You have a loss but the fields were harvested, it's so bad right now," says Jim Domingues.
Domingues and his brother Earl run Domingues Farm. It's over six-thousand acres stretch from Henry to Lafayette. Founded by their great-grandfather in 1918, this year will be Domingues 37th crop.
The drought however, is forcing them to resort to other methods to keep the fields watered.
"Sugar cane irrigation is not anything new in the bucket area. They been doing it for years but down South we are so fortunate we usually catch showers coming off the bay, but that has not happened this year. I mean it's relentless," Domingues tells KATC.
Watering the farm's cane field this year will have to depend on deep water wells, some even from the 1940s to try and salvage the crop.
"We only have a minute amount of acres that can be irrigated but say on 6000 acres, if we can irrigate in between 800 to 1000 we would lucky," Domingues says. "To say we can irrigate every acre can't be done but at least we go to bed at night saying we tried."
There have even been local crawfish farmers who have even lent their wells to help quench the cane's thirst. Domingues says that if more wells are available, it would be monumental.
"We are actually irrigating some cane right now from his crawfish well, which I can't say how nice of a jester that was."
Until the drought is over, sugar cane farmers hope for a steady rainfall to help save their harvest.
