Bittersweet Muck: Florida sugar fires lead to complaints, research and calls for change
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 พ.ค. 2024
- When you enter into the City of Belle Glade a sign reads, “Her soil is her fortune.” But many people change the phrase to say, “Her people are her fortune.” The people who live in Belle Glade and the other small towns along the southern edge of Lake Okeechobee are hard-working, passionate, and inspiring people who live in an area known for its unique, nutrient- rich soil, known as Muck.
For decades, the people who live in The Muck have discussed the potential environmental and health consequences of the practice. In this NBC 6 original documentary, Bittersweet Muck, NBC6 News Reporter Sasha Jones takes you inside the debate about air quality in Florida’s sugar country.
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Brazil is the largest producer of sugar cane, burning for harvesting was banned in the 2000s. Today farmers are grateful because the productivity of plantations has increased. Edit, it's at the end of this documentary. I only saw it later.
Why hasn’t this issue been addressed comprehensively many years ago? I would bet the mega money industry lobbyists have stopped any comprehensive answers to this problem
Are those rats ? Thank you for your hard work.
Muck Rabbits 🐇 also called swamp rabbits a subspecies of cotton tails…
Rabbits
Burning is the easiest and cheapest way to harvest sugar cane and that's the reason these 2 corporations don't go with green harvesting. I've heard this many times and it's the Florida mentality. . . "I've been doing it this way for 30 years" while at the same time I'm thinking "You still haven't learned"
It's not like they can't afford the transition, plus it would create tons of better paying jobs.
Did you watch the documentary. Companies in Brazil have switched over to green harvesting without government subsidies. They had 20 years to switch and are at 90% after 15 years.
I was a victim of asthma when I was younger in cane seasons was the worst for me
My 3 year old daughter is showing signs of asthma…every time they burn she gets a lot worse. Her cough will sometimes last a few weeks, I can’t even imagine what it might be like as she gets older I’m sure it’ll get worse 😔
Great presentation
i lived right next to it from age from 3 to 22.. come on now. My home was right next to the field...they wet my home down so it did not catch fire. When i got covid, i saw a lung specialist and other then covid my lungs were fine and I spent years in that with 2 heavy smokers too. smh.. I was the girl who grew up on old sam center farm!
Wow and Poor little Emmanuel in the film has to grow up in that.. so sad. The sugarcane industry should stop the Burn
God bless you that it never affected you health wise.
The lightning causes tens of thousands of acres to burn every year. I don't see burning cane as a problem. I've lived in Collier for 48 years.
To hell with that burn,
Farmers should probably burn less, and mulch or till under mire often.
This method would produce less air pollution, and allow soil to be fertilized.
Burn season should also be shorten, and people should be advised to wear facemask.
I live out in the sugarcane belt of South Florida n understand the benefits of burning before harvesting, but I’ve always just wondered if there could be products derived from the byproducts of sugar cane especially the undesirable leaves. I’ve always thought of products like paper, cardboard, insulation n particle products. But then again who am I and nothing might be cost effective enough to consider. Just wondering don’t beat me down. God Bless !
Yes! Brazil is showing to be a fabulous leader in ways to reuse and harvest without harming the environment & humans.
@@maryjane_lane that’s amazing news n I hope the rest of the world follows suit to countries that understand using every part of a product n leave nothing to waste n harm.
❤
"Big Sugar" - good neighbors would listen to each other and find ways to ease the folks' concerns. Sierra Club did all the work and found a way for each community member to get along and respect each other: Green Harvesting!
Y'all are inconsiderate neighbors! Bullies!
It's time to reconsider your place in the neighborhood... or be punished!
Take a lesson from Brazil, green harvesting is the way to go!🎉
The industry isn't going away, where are they going to plant? Will they plant in the sea, in the desert, in space? These businessmen put fear into workers to increase profits, but they won't leave because they make a lot of profits.
Agreed, Noone is asking the sugar company to leave. We are asking them to be better neighbors and take a page from Brazil's playbook.❤
a classic case of the have's and the have not's. ill give one quess on who's going to win! one of the owners of the fields is a Florida Legislature who makes the laws. the richer is going to get richer and poor is just going to be poor! and to be honest that is what poor should get because they wont do nothing to change!
Black sand black roofs black ash everywhere,
the made a mistake 40 miles east of west palm is the Atlantic ocean 1:46
Horrible polluting crop.
Just like every other industry, people want the end product but not the process it takes to make that product. You gotta take the good with the bad or do without. People want to change everything to suit them. The want to do away with anything and everything that is a kittle uncomfortable or inconvienient. You want to change the process, you'd better be prepared to pay the extra cost. Suck it up or move. Stop complaining about everything. All this "not in my backyard" nonsense needs to go. If everyone says that, there won't be any backyard to make the consumables people want. You can't have it both ways.
Leave the area if you find it a problem but don't mess with tradition or the livelihood of others. Same thing folks and the government tried to do in Everglades City in the 80's. Leave
Profits over people’s health… got it!
thank you. It's our traditions, leave it alone.
They found out when they messed with the folk in Everglades City. I spent a good part of my childhood just outside town and those are people you don't mess with.
@@Gator-357 I grew up in Copeland.
It must end anyway, open burning is soon to be illegal worldwide!
It can be done stop the burn God bless the glades.
America is more concerned about making more money.... Big Greed!
So, big surgar is now ephing up land and the water! Wow that's ephed up!
The virus is the lamestream media and the lies they sell to the normies who believe everything they here on television. Sugar is not the problem. Poor Development/ planning and these phony conservationists are the problem. If they let the water flow like it was supposed to and like it used to then there wouldnt be a problem with the glades. Environmentalists are a virus (viron)
Let company leave they cant take the land we can take over
It's inaceptable at this time and days still doing that barbaric act! That practice should be banned in the whole wide world!! Shame on them!
i love the old dude supporting the antequated thinking.. my generation did it.. why aint it good? move out if you dont like it.. lol. idiotic.
I just went up and down thru these Comments and you are truly correct. When you know better you do better. They already green harvest in certain fields in my town. It's like Brazil is looking at Florida sugar farmers like....what are you waiting for ! Nothing happens overnight but I can't wait for the day until the Glades becomes the mecca of green harvesting!
I noticed the blacks were only interviewed got to make this a racial issue
Get over it
Watch it again because that's incorrect
This has been this way long before any living people have had a chance to complain. You moved into this area as it has been for 100 years. Don't complaine and say it must be stopped. Move away! Sugar is a tradition in this area.
Its developers taking over Florida ruining our way of life.
They blame everything on "Big Sugar" It's just one big distraction from the lames running things-causing the real problems. Vote them all out!
Just tax all sugary products with a 100% tax, like Quebec does!
Sugar can be harvested without the archaic practice of burning.
@@l.torres3326How many acres of trees burned in Canada last year?