Sugar Mills Consolidating

BRUSLY, La. (AP) - Two sugar mills plan to consolidate their processing operations gradually until one closes in about three or four years.

Alma Plantation LLC operates a mill at Lakeland in Pointe Coupee Parish. It signed a lease-purchase agreement Monday with Harry L. Laws and Company, which owns the Cinclare Central Facility Sugar Mill in Brusly. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Officials say Alma Plantation will expand its mill while gradually shutting down Cinclare. Alma Plantation CEO David Stewart says the deal will allow the company to have enough cane supply to remain open. Alma Plantation processes up to 800,000 tons of sugar cane each year, while Cinclare produced 500,000 tons last year.

Stewart says if they're not processing about 1,300,000 tons a year, the mill is on borrowed time. Alma Plantation employs 60 fulltime employees and 140 workers during harvest. Stewart says the expansion will increase the number of workers by at least 20 percent.

Meanwhile, Harry L. Laws, which has owned and operated Cinclare since the 1880s, says it will expand growing and production of sugar cane on thousands of acres the company owns in West Baton Rouge Parish.