Wlrn | Presents

Karson Turner reaches into a grassy row of sugar cane. He grips a stalk, jointed like bamboo, and breaks it, revealing the sweetness inside. "This will go into the mill, which you can just about see if you take about 20 steps backward you can see the smokestacks. And those get grinded, that raw sucrose that gets pushed out becomes the basis of table sugar that you and I consume all the time," says Turner. The cane field stretches to the horizon, where the world's largest sugar mill billows smoke. The mill serves as the heart of U.S. Sugar Corporation. Turner has lived among these fields nearly all of his life. He is a Hendry County commissioner. "When I look at these cane fields I think of the actual families, the people that I grew up with, their children and grandchildren and what they've built these farms on with sweat equity." At the heart of bitter debate over central and south Florida's water are 60,000 acres of farmland south of Lake Okeechobee. Senate President Joe Negron and