For the first time in 57 years, Manitoba farmers won’t be planting sugar beets.
Rogers Sugar Ltd. shut down the industry in the province when it announced in January it will close its
Winnipeg plant.
But the ever-tenacious Manitoba Sugar Beet Producers’ Association is trying to seed some ideas in the minds of federal politicians.
President Ken Yuill said the group wants the next federal government to work for fair trade policies for sugar, or give growers compensation to help them adjust to the loss of the crop.
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Pay for losses
“Because we were forced out of business based on a trade situation … we think that there should be some attempt to realign and compensate us for the loss we have suffered,” Yuill said.
He noted Quebec growers received help from the federal and provincial governments in 1986 when their processing plant closed.
He doesn’t have estimates of how much money about 250 growers lost when the industry left. Much of it is tied up in specialized equipment that they can’t sell.
Many growers have been able to shift their land into potatoes or beans, Yuill said.
Jobs lost
But the province has lost an industry worth about $100 million, along with the trucking and processing jobs that went with it.
Yuill said he hopes the next federal government will place tariffs or other trade barriers on raw cane sugar that is brought into Canada to be refined.
With a domestic sugar policy, Yuill said beet growers will be able to compete with the artificially cheap raw product.
“When we’re importing half a billion dollars worth of product into Canada, and a great deal of that could be grown here, it seems to be a little bit ludicrous,” the Portage la Prairie farmer said.
The group sent a letter to politicians earlier this month to ask for their support.
“What are the hopes?” said Yuill.
“I don’t know. Sometimes you think you’re going to be making some headway, and the next minute they’re off on a tangent.”
