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BOZEMAN - Montana sugar producers have an opportunity to be paid
for not harvesting some of their beets, but they must act by Friday.
Sept. 1 is the deadline to bid into the 2000 USDA Sugar
Payment-in-Kind Program, leaving producers just a few days to sign
up with processors they have contracted with for beet acreage, say
Farm Service Agency officials.
The 2000 USDA Sugar PIK Program offers sugar beet producers the
choice of reducing their 2000 crop year production in exchange for
Commodity Credit Corporation inventory sugar if their bid is
accepted, said Bruce Nelson, Montana Farm Service Agency state
executive director.
The USDA's intent is to reduce this year's harvest of sugar
beets. The PIK program will help reduce government inventory costs,
reduce potential forfeitures of loan collateral under the CCC sugar
program and help alleviate the current sugar over-production
situation.
The USDA Sugar PIK Program provides producers the opportunity to
offer bids to accept CCC sugar based on a dollar per-acre value they
are willing to accept for the crop they have in the field.
In general, all producers who share in the risk of the production
on the acres bid, including landlords on crop-share leases, are
eligible to participate in the 2000 Sugar P1K Program, says Gary
Brester, Montana State University economist. Each person, as defined
by the USDA, is limited to a $20,000 payment for the 2000 crop year.
In deciding when to submit bids, producers will compare their net
beet returns after harvest operating costs for beets harvested to
the value of the CCC sugar award.
"Producers should consider both the costs managing
unharvested beets to avoid a 'green bridge' for pests that might
infest subsequent crop and the value of the unharvested beets that
might be used as feed for their own livestock," say Jim
Johnson, a MSU Extension economist.
For the 2000 Sugar PTK Program eligible land is land that meets
all of the following:
Planted to 2000 year sugar beets at the time the land is bid;
Is under contract with a processor for the delivery of sugar beets
for sugar;
An insurance indemnity has not been paid, applied for nor will be
applied for on the acres bid;
A replant payment has not been paid for on the acres bid; The acres
had not been previously released by the processor; and,
The planted sugar beets are harvestable and would be harvested for
sugar if not accepted in the 2000 Sugar P1K Program.
More details on the 2000 USDA Sugar Payment-in-Kind Program are
available from several sources. Producers should contact their sugar
beet processor representative, the local Farm Service Agency office
and/or the Trade Research Center at MSU at (406) 994-3705 to request
a more complete summary of program details. Program details are also
available on the Trade Research Center's web site at
www.trc.montana.edu under the "What's New" section.
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