SCOTTSBLUFF - Rick Dorn is spreading the word to sugarbeet
growers and businesses in the Nebraska Panhandle: work together to buy a
Scottsbluff sugar refinery now on the market.
Dorn, a farmer and businessman from Hardin, Mont., is president of the new
Rocky Mountain Sugar Growers Cooperative, which was formed earlier this
year to explore the purchase of Western Sugar Co. from Tate & Lyle,
its parent company.
"I'm updating the growers and the community on our status,"
Dorn said Friday. "This is the first community that has invited me,
and I think that shows a lot of vision, energy and enthusiasm on their
part."
Dorn said that in addition to the update, he is encouraging the
community and lending agencies to be involved and pushing growers to
continue to move in the direction they have taken.
This is the right time for growers to purchase the sugar processing
company, he said.
"This isn't just the growers' burden," Dorn said. "It is an
investment of the whole community. It affects a lot of people, from the
tax base to the factory workers. We all need to pull together."
According to Dorn, the trend has been toward cooperative ownership of
sugar processing facilities. Over the past 25 to 30 years, he said, grower
co-ops have acquired approximately 65 percent of domestic sugar
production. With the purchase of Western Sugar, that would increase to 75
percent.
Tate & Lyle has been negotiating with other parties about the sale
of the company's six sugar factories in Scottsbluff; Bayard; Fort Morgan,
Colo.; Greeley, Colo.; Billings, Mont.; and Lovell, Wyo.
Tate & Lyle first indicated in May that it was considering selling
the plants because a world sugar surplus had rattled the sugar industry,
forcing prices to drop by 25 percent over the past year.
The company has 600 employees and about 185,000 acres under contract in
the four states.
By next week, the cooperative hopes to have a solid basis from which to
move forward with a letter of intent to Tate & Lyle, Dorn said. |