sugar cane

Caña de azucar (Sugar cane)

They are currently in the process of cutting the sugar cane around here.  It takes about six months to cut all the cane.   First they fly over in an airplane and spray the cane with a chemical that causes the sugar cane to dry out.  (Not sure what this does to those of us living close by.)  After a few weeks it is dry and ready to be cut.  They set fire to the cane just prior to cutting it.  This gets rid of the long blades leaving just the cane.  It also gets rid of wasps, and other things that like to make their homes in the cane.  (it also causes ash to fly up into the sky and float down like snowflakes, then somehow accumulate inside my house.)  The cane is then cut by hand with a wide machete and stacked in piles for counting.  The men cutting the cane are all from Haiti as this job is seen as beneath any one from the Dominican Republic.  They work 12 hour shifts, and are paid by the number of piles they have cut.  Cane is also cut by machine, which are kept running night and day.  Burning the cane is not essential and they don’t burn the cane if they want to make white sugar, or if they plan to use the plants for replanting.  After the cane is cut it is loaded into open air trucks and then carried off to where it is loaded on to open aired railroad cars and taken to Barahona for processing.  The fields are then cleaned up by hand, or by machine if they plan to replant the field.  Cane seems to resemble grass, it keeps on growing back.  The more it is cut the better it grows, however over time it gets splotchy, or in clumps and so they then replant the field.  10 inch pieces of cane with buds on them are then planted in the ground in long rows, and fertilized.  The field is then watered using irrigation ditches, and pumps when necessary.  The cane grows fast, and will be ready to cut again next year.