Sugar cane has been the bedrock of Iberia Parish's economy for centuries. Although Iberia Parish has an ever-diversifying industrial economic base and increased soybean acreage, sugarcane remains the staple crop on hundreds of thousands of acres. Iberia Parish leads the sixteen other sugar growing parishes in Louisiana. The first commercial cane harvest was in 1795. As late as the 1940s, sugar cane production was done without mechanization by using mules and horses to cultivate the land and men and women to harvest the stalks.
Sugar cane is a three-year crop and takes thirteen months from a new planting to the first harvest.
Planting takes place in August through early October when joins of stalk kept from previous harvests are sowed. New root systems grow from these cuttings and a new crop begins. After harvesting, a second crop is allowed to grow from the still buried root systems. The fourth year the land is allowed to lie fallow or is planted with a rotational crop to enhance soil quality. In the years prior to mechanized farming, laborers with large knives swiftly cut the leaves off the top stalk and then severed the stalk from the roots.