04-06-00: Sugar beet plant gets $5 million loan

MOSES LAKE, Wash. (AP) -- A local investor has offered a $5 million loan that will keep the Pacific Northwest Sugar Co. plant in business this season.

The loan is from Pamp Maiers, owner of North Central Construction Inc., plant officials said Tuesday.

Two weeks ago, growers were told to delay planting this year's sugar beet crop until company officials found enough money.

The company could not afford to both pay growers, who needed money to plant the 2000 crop, and still fund long-term operations of the $100 million processing plant.

Company officials said the lack of money was due to low sugar prices and a lower-than-expected sugar yield from last year's crop.

The 65 growers in the co-op got word of the loan on Tuesday at a meeting and

were told to begin planting beets.

"The mood coming out of (the meeting) was good because we were so close to the brink of losing everything," said Jay Bair, a farmer and Pacific Northwest board member.

"I'm feeling pretty good right about now," said Quincy beet grower Jerry Hodges. "I feel a lot better now that we're sure we'll have a crop."

The plant opened in 1998, but was plagued that year with operating problems.

The plant was short of cash last April, too, but growers planted 20,000 acres of beets anyway. They didn't know if the plant would be open to process them

until the company got a federally backed $20 million loan in August.

Plant manager Marvin Price said the company will not always need emergency loans. There should be enough sugar produced at the plant next year to sustain both it and growers, he said.

The 1999 crop yielded 585,000 tons of beets that produced sugar worth $32 million to $35 million, Bair said.

About $16 million was earmarked as payment to growers. As of April, they had

received only about $5 million of that, he said.

The new loan money will go to growers as a payment, Bair said. Growers are not expecting to get the remaining $6 million, he said, at least for a couple of years.

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