Those massive seasonal piles of sugar beets that dot the Red
River Valleys landscape are nearly gone.
American Crystal Sugar has trucked sugar beets to its five
area factories since September and is nearly finished
processing the 2000 crop.
The factories have processed about 8.9 million tons of sugar
beets into refined sugar since the fall harvest and will
process the remaining 750,000 tons within a month, company
spokesman Jeff Schweitzer said Tuesday.
"To date weve had exceptional beet storage and have
not lost any tonnage at all were seeing them enter the
factories in good condition.
"With about three weeks left in our processing, we think
were somewhat out of the woods now," Schweitzer said.
American Crystals 2,500 stockholders harvested 445,000
acres of sugar beets with an average yield of 21.6 tons per
acre the companys second highest average. The growers
will receive payments of $32.50 per ton $1 more per ton
than the companys initial forecast, Schweitzer said.
The cooperatives shareholders planted about 500,000 acres
to sugar beets last year. They lost about 20,000 to disease
and plowed under 30,000 to qualify for the Payment In Kind
program a federal program designed to reduce the nations
sugar surplus.
Wahpeton-based Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative finished
processing its 2000 crop April 9, company spokeswoman Patricia
Keough-Wilson said.
The cooperatives shareholders processed about 2.06 million
tons of beets harvested on 94,800 acres. The crop averaged
21.75 tons per acre, she said.
Keough-Wilson would not say how much the cooperatives
shareholders will be paid for their 2000 crop.
Minn-Dak growers planted about 106,000 acres of beets last
year. The PIK program eliminated about 8,000 acres while
floodwaters and disease claimed another 2,000 acres.
The high yields and good storage conditions have helped the
cooperatives offset record-low sugar prices.
And despite low sugar prices, the cooperatives are not
planning to cut back on sugar beet acreage this spring.
Both cooperatives will plant about the same acreage, they say.
Rain and snowfall, however, have delayed planting in the Red
River Valley.
The regions sugar beet crop should be planted by mid-May,
Schweitzer said.
"If we dont get into the fields in two or three weeks
that puts our crop at an average yield at that
point," he said.
Refined sugar is selling for about 21 cents per pound in the
United States, compared to the sweeteners historic domestic
price of about 27 cents per pound.
Bumper domestic crops and increasing imports under the North
American Free Trade Agreement have lowered domestic prices,
industry leaders say. |