TABER, Alta. – During his 31 years in the sugar beet industry, farmer Robert Boras has never seen anything like it.
Yields in sugar beet fields throughout the southeastern Alberta growing area are 20 to 30 percent above average after a near-perfect growing season and harvest. Outside the Rogers Sugar plant in Taber, a mountain of beets sits in the yard, waiting for processing.
“This is the best crop we’ve ever had,” said the Picture Butte area farmer. “So you get a year like this that is so positive in the industry and then this gets thrown at you. It is discouraging. The industry really is under threat.”
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The “this” that Boras was bemoaning is a proposal from the United States that would effectively curtail exports of sugar beet thick juice, putting the future of the Taber Rogers Sugar plant in jeopardy. The Americans are considering counting thick juice imports against the already small general sugar import quota.
Rogers officials have made no announcement about a plant closing but have indicated that a loss of export markets for thick juice would mean both the sugar beet processing plant in Taber and the cane sugar plant in Vancouver would be running far below capacity. Closing one of the plants would have to be considered.
It is a prospect that has Alberta’s 250 beet growers on edge, facing the greatest threat to the industry since 1985 when a contract dispute with Rogers meant no crop was planted or processed that year.
“A lot of us back then thought the industry was going down unless the government stepped up to the plate, but we got through that and we’re proud of what we’ve built since then on our own,” said Boras, a veteran of the 1985 contract dispute.
“But there’s no doubt this is another blow and the core issue is that the Americans are proposing to violate access rules they agreed to. That injects a lot of uncertainty.”
On a farm near Taber that has been producing beets for more than 80 years, Merrill Harris has been receiving calls from many worried growers. As president of Alberta Sugar Beet Growers, he knows the stakes are high.
“For most producers in this area, beets are what keeps the farm going,” he said. With net per acre returns this year expected to be in the $400-$500 range, he said the industry is key to the southeastern Alberta economy.
“There is no doubt there is jeopardy,” he said. “If this rule goes through in the States, I’d hate to say Taber will be the one to close but it seems to be the greatest possibility.”
On his 350 acres of beets, yields were more than 26 tonnes per acre this year compared to an average of less than 21 tonnes.
Harris said closing the plant would likely mean the death of Canada’s last significant sugar beet industry, since proposals for other uses for the beets, including as an ethanol feedstock, have not yet proven viable.
However, that doesn’t mean the death of those farm operations. Harris, who also grows 800 acres of wheat as one of his rotation crops, said irrigation grain farming in the area regularly produces yields of 80-90 bushels per acre.
“But does the grain market really need another 38,000 acres in production?”
