Northside Planting:
Having the Courage to Change
by Keith Richards 
(This article was originally printed in Southern Sustainable Farming, issue no. 6, July 1995, published by Southern SAWG.) 

At first glance, the machine shop of Northside Planting looks like any other on a big South Louisiana sugarcane farm. A jumble of pick-up trucks, tanks, wagons, machinery, and sheds nestle around its large metal frame. The sound of a diesel engine and flame of a welding torch are ever-present as half a dozen men tend purposefully to their work in the humid haze.

Yet Northside's shop sits in the center of an quiet revolution. The shop yard contains machinery to cut herbicide usage, tanks to mix fertilizer according to soil tests, and wagon bins that will haul cut cane without burning and polluting the air. Down the road in every direction are composting mountains of black "waste" waiting to be incorporated into the soil. And in the surrounding fields, wheat and soybeans are growing alongside "King Cane."

In this part of America, with traditions that run deep, anything out of the ordinary stands out like a sore thumb. Soybeans will make the neighbors raise their eyebrows, mountains draw inquisitive looks, and homemade fertilizers cause bankers to cringe. Change is only supposed to take place when the agricultural chemical companies and seed salesmen dictate the latest technology. Farmers aren't supposed to experiment on their own. Undaunted, 48-year-old Jackie Judice is leading practical, farmer-driven change at Northside Planting.  

Raising Cane 200 Years 

It's not enough for Jackie and his family to partially own and operate a 3300 acre farm, keeping their finances solvent while employing 17 full time men. With the help of his wife Rochelle, sons Clint and Chad, and daughter Brandy, Jackie is on a mission to restore the soil in his fields to full productivity and develop a system of farming that sustains them year after year.

The Judice ancestors moved to southern Louisiana--some by way of Nova Scotia-- from Provence, France in the 1700s. In 1800, they began farming on some of the same land Jackie farms today, five years after the sugarcane industry in this area was born. The bumper sticker on their trucks, "Raising Cane 200 Years: 1795-1995," isn't just a Chamber of Commerce promotion, it's their history.

Despite this long history, however, Jackie is willing to question prevailing practices to ensure that sugarcane will be grown here another 200 years. Sometime in the last decade, the decreasing production of his land and profits caused him to take stock. "I kept seeing that we were putting more and more on our land and getting less off," says Jackie. "The equipment and technology were getting better every year, but we were getting less."

"Fifty years ago, before industrialization came to cane country," he says, "farmers used mules and horses for power, so they had to grow corn and oats for feed along with cane. That led to rotations, better practices, and manure for fertilizer. With the drop in prices and increased mechanization, there was pressure to plant more. Farmers needed to buy chemicals to cut weeds so they could manage more acres, and needed chemical fertilizer to make more grow. This started a system of mining the soil." 

Bringing Soil Into Balance 

Maybe Jackie's courage to change came from a military tour of Vietnam. There, he was a point man on patrols and awarded a purple heart for service. He says, "Knowing now that I got out safe, going to Vietnam was good for me because it changed my priorities. That's where I decided for sure I wanted to farm."

After several years of farming more conventionally, Jackie began talking to other farmers in an effort to solve his lowering productivity. After meeting some Mennonite farmers from Illinois at a conference, he was convinced to look at the balance of nutrients in his soil instead of focusing solely on N, P and K. He learned calcium in relation to magnesium was an important key to soil productivity. Through testing, he found out his calcium levels were very low.

To bring his soil back into balance, he quit using potassium chloride and triple super phosphate. The latter "ties with the soil too quickly," according to Jackie. He began broadcasting potassium sulfate instead.

Jackie also began creating his own fertilizer mixture on the farm. "We go strictly by soil samples for adding fertility. We don't believe those high nitrogen rate recommendations. We'll probably put on an average of 15 pounds to the acre this year." The fertilizer mix for 1995, applied all at once in April, included: 32 percent liquid nitrogen, an 11-37 phosphorous source, potassium nitrate, Bio-C (composted chicken manure with a biological package), compost tea, and one gallon of molasses per acre.

At the same time, Jackie began looking to the "waste" products around him for nutrients. He made arrangements to obtain calcium carbonate, a by-product of refined sugar, for free, although trucking costs $10/ton from a mill near New Orleans. He started having his local sugar mill dump their boiler ash--an ash residue from burning the bagasse after the juice is squeezed from the cane--on his farm for free. And he is trying to get a contract for composting waste from local cities, although he lost the bid on New Iberia's waste due to political decisions. He will soon compost mountains of these products and spread them onto his land. 

Weed Control 

The fields of Northside Planting flank Bayou Teche between the Atchafalaya Basin and the Gulf of Mexico. With 80 inches of rain per year, Jackie's biggest concern is getting water off the growing crop. He says, "Two weeks without rain is a drought for us."

In these conditions, johnsongrass is a major problem for farmers. According to the USDA, heavy johnsongrass infestation can cut yields of sugarcane by 25-50 percent. Jackie is tackling this problem on several fronts. In talking to his Mennonite friends in Illinois, he realized that johnsongrass is an indicator of low calcium. It is proliferating because it is trying to rebalance his soil. By bringing his calcium/magnesium ratio back into balance over time, he hopes to lessen the problem.

In the meantime, he continues to use herbicides, but has invented better equipment to apply them more accurately and timely, cutting down on aerial spraying. Recently, Jackie also invented a six row, tractor-mounted "weed-eater" that will cut the tops out of the johnsongrass, giving the cane time to shade it out before it grows back. And late in 1994 he planted winter wheat for the first time on 270 of his acres. He hopes the wheat will act to suppress the johnsongrass.

Planting any crop other than cane is a radical departure from the practices of the last 30-40 years. Traditionally, three crops of sugarcane are grown from each planting--plant cane, first stubble, and second stubble. In the fourth year, cane fields would lie fallow while farmers plowed them several times for weed control during the summer. Four years ago Jackie started planting soybeans on these formerly fallow fields. This eliminated plowing, fixed nitrogen in the soil, broke pest and disease cycles, and added a cash crop to his income. Next year he will also plant soybeans on the numerous headlands that used to sit idle.  

No More Burning 

This fall, the Judices will switch to a system of harvesting that eliminates the need for burning. All ripe cane in south Louisiana used to be cut at the tops and bottoms, then piled in rows in the field. The rows were burned to get rid of trash--loose leaves that absorb sugar in the milling process--before loading the cane onto wagons. Neighbors around farms have increasingly complained about the air pollution and respiratory problems caused by this practice.

Jackie and his family have invested a considerable amount in machinery to make the switch. By harvesting their cane with a combine that cuts the crop, strips the trash off the stalk, and chops the stalks into 10" segments, they will eliminate the noxious burning. The trash will compost in the field.

These are but a few of the innovations Jackie has in mind. He wants to start pasturing horses and cattle on the grassy drainage areas of the farm and raise chickens in the yards. He'd also like to begin an organic test plot of sugarcane to see what problems he would encounter.

His works don't stop at the edge of his land. Jackie cofounded the Acadiana Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SAWG) with Helen Vinton of Southern Mutual Help Association. He serves on the National Sustainable Agriculture Coordinating Committee (NSACC) and is very active in community organizations.

Ironically, a common criticism Jackie hears from the sustainable ag community is that he isn't changing fast enough, or going totally organic today. Jackie responds by saying, "We've got 200 years of bad habits, but we can't change overnight." Those who share his perspective know he's going at just the right speed, and making a major impact in south Louisiana along the way.