Producer
United States Sugar Corporation
Largest sugarcane producer in the US; privately held, headquartered in Clewiston near Lake Okeechobee; mills ~4.5 Mt of cane/yr at the Clewiston mill — the largest sugar mill in the US; controls ~200,000 acres of Florida Everglades farmland.
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1 input United States Sugar Corporation supplies
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Sugarcane Farming
40%Sugar Milling & Processing
45%Railroad Operations (SCFE)
10%Real Estate & Minerals
5%
Intelligence
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Did you know2023
US Sugar Corporation is simultaneously the largest sugarcane producer in the United States and the primary land barrier blocking Everglades restoration. The company controls approximately 200,000 acres of the Everglades Agricultural Area -- the drained wetlands south of Lake Okeechobee -- whose farmland occupies the natural water corridor through which the historic River of Grass flowed south to Florida Bay. The CERP (Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan), the largest ecological restoration project in US history, requires purchasing and restoring portions of this agricultural land to allow natural water flow. In 2008, Governor Charlie Crist announced a $1.75B deal to purchase all of US Sugar's land for restoration; the deal was scaled back to approximately $400M for a smaller parcel due to the financial crisis. US Sugar simultaneously lobbies against further land purchases, pays lobbying costs to maintain sugar import tariffs, and operates a private railroad -- making it one of the more politically sophisticated small agricultural companies in the country.
South Florida Water Management District ↗Chokepoint2023
US Sugar Corporation owns a private railroad in the Florida Everglades Agricultural Area — it runs freight trains across a landscape that federal and state governments have been trying to buy back for Everglades restoration since 2008 US Sugar operates the South Central Florida Express, a ~112-mile private railroad network connecting its fields, mills, and refineries in the Everglades Agricultural Area. In 2008, Florida Governor Crist announced a $1.75B plan to purchase 187,000 acres of US Sugar land for Everglades restoration — the largest conservation deal in US history — but the acquisition was restructured to only ~73,000 acres in 2010 and the company retained its core operations. A 2023 federal/state initiative proposed another partial purchase. US Sugar's political influence and operational integration make it essentially irreplaceable in Florida's domestic cane sugar supply chain.
Miami Herald ↗Origin2023
United States Sugar Corporation was founded in 1931 by Charles Stewart Mott -- a General Motors co-founder and one of the wealthiest men in America -- who saw an opportunity to farm the drained muck soils of the Lake Okeechobee south shore in Florida. The federal government had funded Army Corps of Engineers dike and drainage works around Lake Okeechobee after the catastrophic 1928 hurricane killed 2,500 people by collapsing a dike. Mott acquired land in the newly drained Everglades Agricultural Area and built the Clewiston mill, which today is the largest sugar mill in the United States. The company remains privately held, primarily by a charitable foundation and employee ownership, with no public financial disclosure requirements despite controlling roughly 200,000 acres of prime Florida agricultural land.
United States Sugar Corporation ↗