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The Western Sugar Company announced the
interim payment on the 2000 beet crop.
The payment totaling $11.7 million represents $3.53 per ton
based on an average sugar content of 15.51 percent.
The checks were mailed March 14 to some 1,650 growers in
Colorado, Montana, Nebraska and Wyoming.
Growers in the Goshen County area, which is part of the
Scottsbluff Factory District, received their second payments
totaling $24,763 which represents $3.16 per ton, according to
Kevin Vollmer, Colorado/Nebraska ag manager. This brings the
year-to-date payment to $30.37, based on a 15.0 percent sugar
content. Growers harvested 7,833 ton on 471 acres of which 980
acres had been planted.
Due to some weather problems, we had some acres torn up in
the spring, he said. And some acres were destroyed in
the fall under the PIK program.
Contracting for the 2000 sugar beet growing season is about 50
percent complete, Vollmer said.
We have been in contact with the growers, and we should be
finishing this week, he said. The number of acres
contracted should be about the same as last year.
Vollmer anticipates contracting between 800 to 1,000 acres in
the Goshen County area. |