He's got 2,500 acres in sugar cane. Roth is busily tending to last-minute details before heading off on a family ski vacation to Breckenridge. Most of the phosphorous leaving the farm is attached to soil, he says, so he's trying to lessen the amount of soil leaving by using an innovative interior pumping system that allows him to move water around his various fields. For all its challenges, this is farming paradise, Roth says, thanks to a combination of organic soil, mild weather and flat land. Farming in the EAA is intense year-round, says the USDA's Smola, but perhaps never more so than during the annual cane harvest, which is now in progress.
Smoke rises from the fields as growers burn off the leaves before sending the stalks for processing.
The sugar mills run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No one goes home. They are regarded as barons, and known collectively as Big Sugar. Many conservationists grouse that Big Sugar controls those who control those who control the all-important flow of water. Agriculture has brought too much of a good thing into the Everglades.