SARE 2000 Highlights

Demos Show Educators, Farmers the Value of Syrup

To learn how to process and market syrup from sweet sorghum and sugarcane, farmers and agricultural educators attended demonstrations staged by Alcorn State Extension. Photo by Gwen Roland

Mississippi syrup crop producers are improving their growing methods and earning as much as $25 more per gallon thanks to a statewide training program run by Alcorn State University Cooperative Extension Program. To rejuvenate the sweet sorghum and sugarcane industry, which has declined largely due to high labor requirements and low market prices, Alcorn extension educators used a SARE professional development grant to develop a mobile educational program centering around a syrup harvesting and processing machine they dubbed the Mill on Wheels. Not only did they demonstrate processing at about 20 field days and festivals, but they also took the harvester into farm fields to show producers—many of them limited-resource—and ag educators how to machine-harvest and process sweet sorghum and sugarcane. The equipment replaces hand-harvesting, saving up to $800 an acre. Training also focused on improving syrup crop production, specifically soil fertility and the benefits of winter cover crops to build organic matter and add residue. Marketing strategies included replacing metal syrup cans with attractive plastic containers and playing up the uniqueness of creating Mississippi syrup in front of festival-goers. “The processing has a lot of nostalgia to it—you start out with a raw juice and end up with a sweet syrup,” says William Patton, the project leader. As many as 70 producers processed syrup as part of the project. For more information, go to www.sare.org/projects/ and search for ES98-041

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