| GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) -- Despite problems in the sugar industry,
American Crystal Sugar Co. is in solid financial shape, a spokesman
says.
" But yes, we have done the prudent thing and put a lot of
our capital improvement projects on hold, in hopes that prices will
return to more normal levels, " Crystal spokesman Jeff
Schweitzer said.
That means the five American Crystal factories -- in Hillsboro
and Drayton in North Dakota and in Moorhead, Crookston and East
Grand Forks in Minnesota -- could lag behind in repairs and
renovations.
Crystal officials want the federal government to repeat a program
that paid sugar beet growers last year to destroy part of their
crop.
About 30, 000 acres, or 6 percent of the 500, 000 acres seeded to
beets last year by American Crystal growers, were not harvested in
return for payments to growers, Schweitzer said.
Beet growers in the Red River Valley expect to get $31 per ton or
less for last year' s crop, depending on how the processing season
goes. They say that is the lowest in at least 20 years.
" In this country, our farmers live by environmental laws,
we pay more for (farm) chemicals, for workers, " said Aime
Dufault, a grower from Argyle, Minn., and a former member of the
Crystal board of directors. " We have a lot of higher costs to
be farming in this country. Farmers don' t want to get payments from
the government, they just want to get what' s fair for their
crop."
Thomas McKenna, president of United Sugars Corp. of Bloomington,
Minn., told officials in Washington last week that the domestic
sugar industry is " in a period of crisis and extreme
uncertainty."
Government policy " as it relates to the sugar industry, is
not effective, " McKenna said.
American Crystal helped found United Sugars Corp. in 1993,
joining with two other beet cooperatives and a Florida cane sugar
company, to work on changing federal farm and trade policy.
Luther Markwart, executive vice president of the American
Sugarbeet Growers Association and current chairman of the American
Sugar Alliance, said that since the 1996 federal farm law took
effect, seven sugar beet factories have been closed. He also said
Imperial, the largest sugar refiner, is in bankruptcy, and more than
half of the sugar beet factories are for sale to their growers, who
are considered " owners of last resort."
Markwart and others say the U.S. Department of Agriculture' s
ability to manage sugar production and prices has been diminished by
trade agreements with other nations. They also say sugar from other
countries is circumventing trade agreements. |