LETHBRIDGE – Southern Alberta’s sugar beet farmers are expected to recover after bad weather wrecked their crop last year.
Rob Boras of the Alberta Sugar Beet Growers Marketing Board said most of the 200 farmers “are ready to go at it again this year.”
The sugar beet crop had been experiencing a normal year until Oct. 4, when rain, snow and freezing weather wreaked havoc.
Lantic Sugar and its field staff and Taber factory crew worked with the marketing board to harvest and process as many beets as possible before they were forced to stop operations, leaving 6,500 acres of unharvested beets to clean up this spring.
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Losses were reduced for growers who bought crop insurance, but armed with a new three-year production contract in 2009 with Lantic, producers were expecting good returns, partly because of the highest world sugar prices in 20 years.
Boras said the industry was predicting an average yield of 24 tonnes an acre, and farmer returns before expenses could have hit $50 a tonne. Using those figures, the potential loss without crop insurance on 6,500 acres would have been $7.8 million.
Boras said the biggest disappointment was the inability of all growers to capitalize on the excellent beet price for the 2009 crop.
“But that is the way it goes,” he said.
“It is not always like that and I think most growers will shrug it off and rise to the challenge.”
Boras said opportunities for new sugar beet growers in 2010 will be up to Lantic Sugar and its ability to create market share for beet sugar. Lantic Sugar allocates production acres and the marketing board distributes them among growers.
With so many beets left unprocessed, Lantic Sugar could face a sugar shortfall this year, which Boras said could encourage increased beet acres.
“Until Lantic Sugar says its needs a lot more sugar, we will make production adjustments as we go.”
He said it’s unlikely that last year’s disastrous harvest will convince growers to leave the industry.
Boras said most growers have faced production problems before, “but we have a devoted group in this industry I feel will hang in till the
bitter end.”
For 2010, the second year of the general production contract with Lantic, growers could fetch a premium price if the world sugar price remains high.
“I think growers will react to the potential of good returns in 2010.”
