| RENVILLE, MINN. -- Sugar beet farmers are back in the fields, starting a
harvest that threatens to be the last for some who are struggling to find
ways to pay off a $34 million shortfall for their sugarcompany.
The problem stems from a cold snap a year ago that changed the sugar
content and quality of the beets. The crop produced sugar worth about $21
million, instead of an expected $65 million -- a blow to farmers in the
10-county sugar beet area of west-central Minnesota.
As it usually does, the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative in
Renville made periodic payments that totaled
$55 million to its 550 members last year. And also as usual, it
intended to divide profits from processing the beets into sugar to the
co-op members after the season. This would bring the total sugar
contribution to west-central farm income up to about $65 million for the
2000 beet crop, says John Richmond, president of the company.
But instead of dividing profits, the co-op is asking its members to
cover the shortfall, or overpayment, of $34 million. That is the shortfall
from the initial payments after recovery of $21 million in sugar from the
freeze-damaged crop.
For some farmers who own considerable shares in Southern Minn, as the
co-op is commonly called, the bill to settle last year's disastrous crop
reaches or exceeds $200,000 each, says Neil Rudeen, a Buffalo Lake, Minn.,
farmer who serves as chairman of the co-op board.
"We're going to have people lose their farms over this. Main
Street businesses will be lost. The whole landscape out here is going to
change." |