| FARGO, N.D. (AP) -- Wet weather delayed sugar beet planting for the
Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative this year and led to lower yields than last
year' s record, the co-op' s president and chief executive officer said
Tuesday.
Final figures from the 2000 crop year show the company' s producers
harvested more than 2 million tons of sugar beets, with an average of
21.74 tons per acre, David Roche said at news conference before the
Wahpeton-based cooperative' s annual meeting Tuesday.
The company has processed half of this year' s crop, which totaled 1.7
million tons of beets at an average of 18.04 tons per acre, he said. Both
of the current figures are below average.
Minn-Dak refines sugar from beets grown by about 500 farmers under
contract in northwestern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota.
Wet weather in June hurt the quality of a crop already affected by a
snowy spring, Roche said.
" That was the real problem. We were delayed getting our planting
in, " he said.
The 2000 crop set a yield record and led to gross payments to farmers
that topped $40 per ton, putting them at the top of the industry, Roche
said.
Those payments are expected to fall to around $33 per ton when the
company finishes processing the current crop, he said.
While sugar prices fell about 11 percent over the last year, they have
recently improved, Roche said.
He gave credit for the improvement to the federal payment-in-kind
program, which pays farmers to destroy sugar beets rather than contribute
to an industry glut. In 2000, 8, 620 acres of Minn-Dak beets were plowed
under in the program, from 106, 449 acres that were planted.
The U.S. Agriculture Department approved 9, 881 acres of Minn-Dak beets
for plowing under this year.
Minn-Dak supports changing the program so it directs the number of
acres planted each spring rather than the amount harvested.
" To plow up good, productive beets is not a good long-term
policy, " Roche said.
While the bottom line would be the about the same, the change would
save time and prevent farmers from having to destroy otherwise healthy
crops, said Minn-Dak chairman Victor Krabbenhoft, who grows beets and
lives in Moorhead, Minn.
American Crystal Sugar Co. of Moorhead is expected to announce its
yields during its annual meeting in Fargo on Thursday. |