| An Idaho spring can deliver ear-numbing wind and biting rain
that turns to sleet on one day, while the next day the season
brings calm skies the color of robins' eggs and balmy
temperatures. But the spring of 2001 is delivering more than
just sudden weather changes.
South of Burley some 1,200 acres have been frozen and will
be replanted, said Paul ag-manager John Schorr Wednesday. In
the Nampa district about 2,000 acres of early beets will be
replanted.
A hard frost in April is not unusual, but it is unusual for
farmers to be searching for sugar beet ground this late. It is
just one of the effects of the Idaho Power buyback.
A few acres -- not beet acres - in Nampa district went the
way of the buyout. But Elwyhee district -- Elmore and Owyhee
counties -- with a combined buyback of almost 39,000 acres
across the board, there has transferring of shares into Twin
Falls, Minidoka and Cassia counties.
So many acres were taken out that some Nampa/Elwyhee
farmers have not found new homes for their Amalgamated shares,
said the districts' ag-manager Clark Millard.
In fact, beet ground is downright difficult to find right
now.
"We'll have plenty of beets around here this
year," Schorr said, referring to the Mini-Cassia
District.
Schorr said he knows of no one in Mini-Cassia who has opted
out of growing beets other than those farmers forced out of
business due to financial problems.
But another unexpected circumstance has presented itself:
No irrigation water. Richfield and part of the Shoshone area
along with the Salmon tract may be out of water by early
summer. And Millard said some water districts on the Boise and
Payette River drainage are hurting for water.
"There is just a plain shortage of water," he
said. "Some farmers won't have enough water to grow a
crop of beets or anything. If they don't have water, they
can't plant."
He said some have coped with the emergency by finding land
with wells or taking water from one farm with a well and
transferring it to another.
Farmers might have had some hope of eliminating some
planting because of a product-for-production Senator Larry
Craig, R-Idaho, proposed last week to Secretary of Agriculture
Ann Veneman in Washington, D.C.
But with 30 percent of Amalgamated beets already in the
ground on Wednesday, most farmers won't save the cost of
planting even if the proposal does come through.
Mark Duffin, executive director for the Idaho Sugarbeet
Growers Association, said Veneman has put the offer to her
brain trust. Meanwhile, lawyers in the Department continue to
haggle over whether she has the authority to release 800,000
tons of Commodity Credit Corporation inventories of sugar to
beet processors who would in turn negotiate with producers to
reduce 2001 plantings. |