| TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- News that American Crystal Sugar Co.,
the flagship of farmer-owned cooperative food processing in the region, is
having tough times comes as no surprise to Jeff Woodman, Western U.S.
district marketing manager for American Crystal Hybrids, owned by Beta
Seed.
"It's same old, same old," he said, "the price of sugar
is down, there's too much sugar, there's too much being imported."
Things are the same all over, including Idaho, he added.
Crystal, which no longer has any holdings in Idaho, sold its Idaho beet
seed operation and a breeding facility in Nampa to Beta Seed two years
ago. Since that time, Crystal's 2,800 shareholders have lost an estimated
$600 to $900 a share. Shares that 18 months ago were trading at $1,500 to
$1,800 now are in the $900 range.
"They're just suffering like everyone else," woodman said.
"Basically, Idaho farmers are seeing the same thing, as far as the
shares have dropped. They're not what they were two years ago."
Wayne Neeley, controller for Amalgamated Sugar Co. in Salt Lake City,
said beet acreage shares in Idaho sold for $400 to $450 four years ago
when the Snake River Sugar Co, a grower co-op, bought Amalgamated. Since
that time, shares have gotten as high as $800 or $900 in the Mini-Cassia
area.
"But I don't think it's that robust now," he said
Neeley -- and growers -- will soon find out the value of those shares,
with the 2001 planting in the not-so-distant future.
"It'll be very interesting to see what happens this spring,"
he said. "Up until now, beets have remained a favorable crop, and I
think they will continue to do so." But what the price of shares will
be "is hard to tell," he said. "It will depend on the value
of other crops as well."
Rupert grower Todd Merrigan, who sits on the board of the SnakeRiver
Sugar Co., agrees, saying it's too early to tell what kind of shifting of
sugar-beet shares will take place next spring.
"There's usually not too much taking place in December," he
said on Tuesday. Besides, board members are not involved in the selling or
leasing of shares other than to ratify a sale. How much a farmer sells his
shares for is between the seller and buyer.
"Every farmer is independent in the way he thinks," Merrigan
said.
Twin Falls ag manager Leonard Kerbs said he is never privy to financial
deals, either, because knowing how much someone is trying to get for his
shares might turn him into a middleman, something neither he nor the upper
management want.
As for Crystal, a conservative $300 million to $450 million has been
washed away from shareholders' balance sheets. Throw in similar numbers
from Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative of Wahpeton, N.D., and Southern
Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative of Renville, Minn., and the losses nearly
double.
Of course, not all shares were bought at the higher levels. Some
Crystal growers bought shares at the $125 level in the early 1970s, and
others reportedly paid as high as $2,800 in the mid-1990s.
Assuming that everyone's shares have devalued, however, it's a
balance-sheet hit of huge proportions.
"Everybody is aware that these beet stock values have dropped from
$500 to $1,000 an acre," said one director of a local in the region
who asked not to be named. "Beet stock is dropping.
I would suspect the next thing to drop is land." |