Kevin Pankratz can remember the thrill of after-school truck rides delivering beets from his dad’s farm in Steinbach, Man. to the sugar plant in Winnipeg.
Sugar beets have always been a part of the 32-year-old farmer’s life. He even met his wife Marilyn because their fathers were both on the local sugar beet producers’ board.
But it looks like sugar beets may become only a sweet memory in Manitoba. Rogers Sugar Ltd. announced last week it will close its Winnipeg plant, ending a 56-year history in the province.
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Pankratz, one of the 230 “die-hards” who have hung on to producing the crop through a chaotic decade, said he’s trying not to be bitter.
“My farm will survive. My family will be fed,” he said. “But there will be less jobs on our farm, less economic activity in rural Manitoba.”
The Pankratz family started growing beets 35 years ago, planting 35 acres because it looked like a lucrative crop, and they wanted to diversify from cereals.
Last year, they planted 300 of their 1,400 acres to beets, and with help of staff, devoted 2,000 hours each year to the demanding crop.
They own a shed full of equipment used to plant, spray, defoliate and harvest the beets, as well as an extra tractor and “a whole bunch of trucks.”
The good ol days
In the good times, the family saw returns from sugar beets that were about 50 percent better than their other crops. But the good times have been long gone.
For the past few years Pankratz was not sure there was a financial advantage to growing beets compared to potatoes, sunflowers, beans and cereals on the rest of his land.
“Really, we were hanging in to the industry, willing to stick it out for the long term.”
Apart from the long hours during harvest, where many growers deliver beets around the clock, they spent the off-season in meetings, lobbying government on trade issues or asking the company for better prices.
In fact, last week growers thought Rogers officials wanted to negotiate this year’s contract when they met them at a downtown Winnipeg hotel.
But abruptly, they were told of the closure.
Pankratz said growers always felt they were partners with the plant. In fact, many older growers not at the meeting couldn’t accept this wasn’t some type of hardball negotiating tactic. They can’t understand why the federal government will fly around the world to drum up business to create jobs, but ignore trade policy concerns of an established value-added industry in its own backyard, he said.
Ken Yuill, president of the growers’ association, said perhaps farmers should make sure they have more input into an industry they depend on.
With the plant gone, growers don’t have a market for their beets. Yuill said it doesn’t look like farmers will plant any this year.
