US Sugar scoops up 1,300 acres in Palm Beach County for $27M

U.S. Sugar Corp. scooped up a 1,346-acre agricultural tract in west Palm Beach County for $27.2 million, marking sugar cane producers’ continued appetite for South Florida land. 

Clewiston-based U.S. Sugar bought the tract east of Brown’s Farm Road and north of Dairy Road in an unincorporated area of the county from an entity tied to Costa Rica-based sugar and honey producer Azucarera El Palmar, according to records and real estate database Vizzda. The address of one of the parcels that is part of the nine-lot assemblage is 21715 Dairy Road. 

The deal breaks down to $20,188 per acre. 

Azucarera El Palmar is led by President Mario Joaquin Miranda, records show. Its affiliate had paid $8.5 million for the land in 1984. 

Led by Ken McDuffie, U.S. Sugar is a sugar cane, citrus and sweet corn farming company that grows its crops across 245,000 acres in Palm Beach, Martin, Glades and Hendry counties, according to its website. 

In 2014, U.S. Sugar dropped $128 million for 51 tracts of land in Palm Beach County, including parcels along State Road 80, Brown’s Farm Road and Atlantic Sugar Mill Road in the Gladeview Farms area near Belle Glade.

The Fanjul family’s West Palm Beach-based Florida Crystals is another sugar production giant with expansive farmland in South Florida. In January, Florida Crystals dropped $15.7 million for $1,626 acres of agricultural land east of U.S. Highway 27 in unincorporated Palm Beach County, near South Bay. 

Sugar cane producers’ ownership of vast land tracts in South Florida has for years put them in the crosshairs of environmentalists and state water managers. The South Florida Water Management District and other state entities have argued that some of the farmland is needed to restore Lake Okeechobee’s southward water flow and for Everglades rehabilitation projects. During the rainy season, some of the lake’s outflow is now directed east and west across Florida.