Personality Profile | A peek inside the daily lives of Lane and Kristie Blanchard
Hard Work and Sweet Dreams A Day in the Life of a Sugarcane Farming Family by Patrice Doucet | photography by Sarah Soprano
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t’s 7 p.m. in early December, and Lane Blanchard is just getting in from a long day in the cane fields. Like other growers, he has been cutting his cane since the first week of October. With grinding season nearly finished now, he and his crew at Lane Blanchard Farms in Loreauville will be working nonstop until the middle of January. It’s a life he and his wife Kristie, who is also an integral part of the business, have been at since 1983. Now with two grown sons helping, the Blanchard’s are an example of the family spirit and work ethic that bring success and longevity to the sugarcane industry.
“Sitting on top of that harvester, cutting the cane, I can say I saw the crop from start to finish,” he says in earnest. “To watch the cane go through the harvester, that’s the fruits of your labor.”
Lane, unflinching and humble to his core, is a fifth-generation farmer with a strong vein of sugarcane history running through both sides of his family. He oversees 1,700 acres of his own in Iberia and St. Mary Parishes, and also helps manage 3,800 acres of Blanchard Brothers, Inc. with his two brothers.
Afternoons Lunch for farmers is not a break, as we know it to be. The men – Lane included – eat a sandwich on the go, at no set time, anytime from 10 to 1, depending on when they have a few minutes’ wait time.
Kristie has been the business’s secretary, doing payroll and the books, since before they were married. She’s always known how much her husband loves farming, but says it was easier back then. “Lane was only farming 300 acres at the time and, as the years went on, the acreage grew.” (She oversees the payroll for Blanchard Brothers, as well, although she is in the process of handing that duty over to a sister-inlaw.) Mornings The day begins early on the Blanchard farm. Lane wakes up with the roosters, rising at 4:00am. By 4:30 he’s on his way to his routine first stop, a small community store and bait shop in Lydia called Dago’s. There he and 10 other farmers talk shop for a short 14 Acadiana Lifestyle, January 2022
His operation and Blanchard Brothers have four tractors and four trucks each, loading the cane in the fields, bringing it to the loading site, and hauling it to the St. Mary Sugar Co-Op Mill. It’s a continuous operation all day long, with workers communicating by two-way radios. Between the two operations, a total of some 1,600 tons of cane (or about 65 truckloads) is hauled each day.
They are fortunate to have had only a few breakdowns beyond an occasional flat tire or a busted hydraulic hose. “We have spare tractors and a spare harvester; if one breaks, we replace it and continue going,” Lane assures. Parts are carried with them, and two mechanics are also on hand at the call over a radio. Time is money in the sugarcane business.
time over biscuits and coffee. They swap “hellos” with the fishermen who come in to pick up some bait. It’s a grounding 20 minutes he wouldn’t miss before heading out to any one of his fields, which span from Loreauville to Cypremort Point and Glencoe. A harvest schedule tells the crew which fields to tend to first, depending on
the year, soil type and weather. The sugarcane crops are on a three-year cycle, cutting the older cane first and then moving into younger cane fields, all the while with two harvest operations going on. During grinding, Lane will spend 9-10 hours a day cutting cane, himself, something he doesn’t consider a chore.
After the cane is hauled away, the remaining shucks are either burned or raked. “When a field is near a school or homes, we opt not to burn, but we still have to get the residue off the tops of the cane. So in those cases, we rake the shucks off the top of the rows with hay racks attached to the tractors,” explains Lane, who also takes great steps to learn how to preserve the land for future generations.
