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Ed
Kuntz was a sugar beet farmer for more than 50 years. He also raised malt
barley.
It
was a life spent in the Yellowstone River Valley providing the sweet
sprinkles over breakfast, and the chief ingredient for a cold brew at the
end of the day. What an honorable way to make a living.
He died Sept. 7.
During that half-century sojourn, Kuntz was
personally involved in the ebb and flow of the sugar beet industry in
Montana and the United States. How that plays out in the near future is
conjecture, but most likely it will be disruptive for individuals and the
domestic industry alike.
Kuntz was a member of what has been called “The
Greatest Generation.” This group of Americans grew up in the Depression
and finished its education just in time to go to war.
After the defeat of fascism on two sides of the
globe, these American men and women married their sweethearts and began
building the greatest economic engine in the history of the world. Not
just for themselves, but for the defeated peoples as well.
Specialized equipment
Over the years, the sugar beet industry has gone from
an incredibly labor-intensive business to an incredibly capital-intensive
industry; from migrant laborers hoeing the fields, to computerized
technology running specialized equipment.
Over the past 16 years, Kuntz and his compatriots in
the beet business participated in the wild roller coaster ride of the
sweetener business. In 1984, tired of being jerked around by the Great
Western Sugar Co., then owned by the Hunt brothers of Dallas, the beet
farmers here did the unthinkable. They went on strike. That’s right.
They refused to grow beets that year and the factory here in Billings went
idle for a season at a cost of up to $40 million to the local economy.
That hurt financially and it hurt the farmers’ pride.
Shortly thereafter, the Hunts, trying to recoup what
they lost in failing to corner the silver market, declared bankruptcy and
put the sugar plant up for sale. The Billings refinery and five others in
Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado were bought by a British firm, one that
held the original patent for the sugar cube.
During this transition, Kuntz was a leader regionally
and nationally, negotiating contracts and looking after government
programs. The latter was not something he really cared for, but he
acknowledged their need as a safety net in the volatile ag commodities
markets. In his dealings with the media, he was a reporter’s dream –
he told it straight.
Last winter he expressed his dismay at the impending
crisis for sugar producers in the United States, which has forced the
government to buy sugar to uphold the price and to pay farmers to plow
under a portion of this year’s harvest to reduce the glut. American
farmers in the postwar period have been too successful, they produce too
much – even with the continuous loss of prime agricultural land.
In Yellowstone County between 1993 and 1998, 20
percent of the irrigated farm land was lost to other uses. Planting septic
tanks in alluvial loam nowadays is much more profitable than planting
food.
The sugar beet business progressed along rather
nicely in the past decade, but now the world and especially the United
States is suffering from too much of a sweet thing and depressed prices.
The British owners of the Western Sugar Co. are looking to unload their
“under performing assets” in North America. Somebody new is eventually
going to run the Billings sugar plant. It could be the growers themselves
or another sugar company.
But buying a sugar plant now could be a challenge for
the aging farm population. A new, big investment at this stage will give
pause to many.
Kuntz was taking part in that process too when he
died week before last. His memorial was held in the Custer High School
Gym, where he played in the first basketball game in the new building. His
family and friends filled that weekend social center this past week to say
good-bye to a citizen who gave more than generously to his community.
The worth of an individual in Montana is often
expressed in the number who consider you a friend. Kuntz was wealthy by
that measure.
He’ll miss the next chapter of sugar beet farming
in this valley; it has been here for more than a century. But Kuntz did
his part to make it work by his work, and its future will depend on others
to take up the labor he left.
At his going-away party Tuesday, his 7-year-old
granddaughter, Morgan, played a tune on her fiddle: “In the Sweet By and
By.”
In Ed Kuntz’s end of Yellowstone County, it was and
it is. |