| FARGO, N.D. -- Several sugar beet shareholders of Wahpeton N.D.-based
Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative have been forced to destroy beets without
payment because they illegally applied Blazer herbicide.
The co-op now is trying to decide whether further steps are warranted
against the tens of thousands of dollars. Some shareholders have asked
that the violators be penalized, up to and including forfeiting their
stock.
If Blazer-contaminated beets were harvested and stockpiled, the value
of the entire pile could have been compromised.
Members who asked not to be named say the case involves nine growers
and about 700 acres that had to be destroyed.
Steve Caspers, Minn-Dak's executive vice president and chief financial
officer, says the co-op board first became aware of possible misuse of
Blazer in late July. The board directed the company management to
investigate and to "take any action to protect Minn-Dak from the
consequence of this misapplication."
The board was particularly concerned that contaminated beets not be
lifted and delivered to the co-op, he says. Co-op field staff inspected
the fields in question and then notified the Minnesota Department of
Agriculture for an investigation.
The state then took field samples and interviewed growers over four or
five weeks. The state confirmed their findings to the co-op in late
September.
Fines possible
It concluded that certain acres of sugar beets were adulterated and
required a permanent embargo, Caspers says.
The state has not decided whether to levy fines.
None of the suspect beets were lifted, Caspers says. Individual losses
ranged from about 100 to 150 acres, Caspers says. Input costs are $300 to
$400 per acre, not including the cost of management and stock ownership.
The beets won't qualify for the federal payment-in-kind program either.
The PIK program was designed to pay growers to destroy healthy beets in
order to reduce government-owned stocks and help increase sugar prices.
A request to enroll the Blazer-contaminated beets was denied on grounds
that they must be beets that could be processed into sugar, a claim that
Minn-Dak no longer could make.
The chemical, Ultra Blazer, a broadleaf contact herbicide, is approved
for soybeans to control several weeds, including redroot pigweed.
Blazer is not approved for use in sugar beets, but not because of a
health risk to consumers, according to Alan Dexter, a North Dakota State
University and University of Minnesota herbicide specialist based in
Fargo.
"First, there's no Blazer residue that ends up in sugar,"
Dexter says. "The reason it's not approved in sugar beets is because
it damages beets and causes sugar beet yield losses.
"These growers may have been thinking they had to prevent seed
production of the pigweed and take the yield loss," Dexter says.
"Of course, it's still a problem because there was no label"
permitting use on sugar beets.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture did not test piled beets for
Blazer residues, Caspers says.
Minn-Dak is convinced that any beets delivered to the plant were
unadulterated, Caspers says, but has made no further investigation of its
own.
"We believe this was an isolated case in an isolated year when
there happened to be a lot of problems with pigweed. This is not an
ongoing problem that has finally reared its head."
"We don't believe we have any Blazer chemical in the piles,"
Caspers says. |