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Cold Snap Severely Damaged Sugar Crop

CLEWISTON (CBS4) - While farmers in southern Miami-Dade may have suffered minimal damage from our recent cold snap, it's a very different story for the sugar cane crop.

U.S. Sugar, which has about 150 thousand acres of sugarcane in South Florida, said five days of freezing temperatures severely damaged their crop, much of it experiencing freezing temperatures for up to 12 hours. Spokeswoman Judy Sanchez this crop was already impacted early in its growth by January's record-smashing 12 days of deep freeze.

"These multiple hard freezes impacted 100 percent of our sugarcane crop," said Judy Sanchez, director of corporate communications in a written release, "both the current mature 2010-11 crop and the newly planted 2011-12 crop which was burnt back to the ground."

Sanchez estimated that they will only be able to harvest 60 percent of this year's crop. Workers in the fields are working quickly to harvest the frozen sugarcane before it spoils.

The weather is also making it difficult for sugarcane farmers to find enough acceptable seed cane, which will exacerbate the impact on next year's crop.

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