I have lived on Northside Road for 47 years. In the past, sugar cane trucks and tractors have dropped enough sugar cane along the road in my front yard for me to start a sugar mill of my own.

Things have gotten better over the years and this year there is not a sign that at least half of the sugar cane going to the Cajun Co-op passes in front of my home. There is not a stalk of sugar cane or leaves dropped for me to clean up.

My compliments to the farmers for their efforts to be good neighbors. I am happy to have the Judice farmers on one side of me and Tommy Thibodeaux with the Cajun Co-op on the other side. They are great neighbors like the other sugar cane farmers that many of you live next to.

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For those of you too young to know, there was a time when sugar cane trucks and tractors were lined up on the Northside Road as far as the eye could see, waiting to enter the mill. This is no longer the case. Today the carts and trailers are neatly arranged on the Co-op lot leaving Northside Road free and clear.

When you consider the contribution that the sugar industry makes to Iberia Parish, and the stability it has provided to the economy at a time when the oil industry is down and unemployment is so high in this country, we have “much to be thankful for.”

J. D. Dugas

New Iberia