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NAMPA -- Sugar-beet farmers are being asked by the federal
government to idle some of their acreage in exchange for sugar they
can sell, but experts say the program is not enough to sweeten an
increasingly sour market.
"It's a Band-Aid for a bad wound," Farm Service Agency
Canyon County Committee member Cleo Miller said.
Last year, sugar was one of the most stable agricultural commodities
in the county.
Today, sugar prices are at an 18-year low, and producers fear
Mexican imports will continue to flood the market.
"This industry has got some severe problems," Canyon
County Farm Service Agency Executive Director Lary Silver said.
Idaho is the second-largest sugar-beet-producing state in the
nation, behind Minnesota.
Idaho farmers grew 197,000 acres of sugar beets, producing 5.5
million tons, in 1998, the latest year for which statistics are
available.
Beyond growing sugar beets, Idaho sugar-beet producers have even
more at stake, having banded together as a cooperative to purchase
Amalgamated Sugar in January 1997 for $266 million.
Much of that money has yet to be paid to banks that financed the
purchase.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is receiving loan
payments in the form of sugar because of the low prices, has
instituted a payment-in-kind program to exchange excess sugar for
crops.
Farmers can receive up to $20,000 in sugar to sell in exchange
for not planting the equivalent value of acreage -- approximately 10
to 12 acres. The goal is to reduce the glut.
"I'm not sure it's going to help in the long run, but it's
going to take some of the sting out," said Ernie Corder, an
Amalgamated Sugar field manager helping farmers with the program
this week at Farm Service Agency.
"At this point, we've got to try something," Corder
said.
With about 1,000 southwestern Idaho growers and landowners
involved in beet production, the situation has a lot of people
worried.
"It's not in my nature to grow a crop and raise it up and
then destroy it," said one grower, who declined to be named.
"The family farm is virtually doomed."
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