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— Feature Articles —

A Love of Farming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Idaho grower and Snake River Chairman Duane Grant

Through the Chairman’s Eyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Duane Grant visits about the co-op he leads

Al Bloomquist: A Tribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Late industry leader also founded The Sugarbeet Grower

No-Till Sugarbeets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18It’s a rarity, but trio of Montana growers makes it work

— Regular Pages —

Dateline: Washington . . . . . . . . . . 12Election recap & ‘Lame Duck’ agenda

Write Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14A Wet One

Around the Industry . . . . . . . . . . . 21Who, what & where it’s happening

— Front Cover —

An autumn 2012 predawn sceneat the American Crystal Sugar Co. piling station near Glyndon, Minn.

Photo: Don Lilleboe

Correction: The site of theJuly/August cover photo was labeled incorrectly. The photowas actually taken on the

Jim Baker farm near Sabin, Minn.

THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012 3

Page 18

Page 4

‘Serving The Nation’s SugarbeetCommunity Since 1963’

Volume 51 Number 6November/December 2012

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Graphics: Forum Communications Printing

The Sugarbeet Grower is published sixtimes annually (January, February, March,April/May, July/August, November/December)by Sugar Publications, a division of ForumCommunications Printing.

North American sugarbeet producers re-ceive the magazine on a complimentary basis.Annual subscription rates are $12.00 domes-tic and $18.00 for foreign subscribers.

Advertising in The Sugarbeet Growerdoes not necessarily imply endorsement of aparticular product or service by the publisher.

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Vic Jaro, Amalgamated Sugar Com-pany’s president and CEO, uses

these phrases in describing the wayDuane Grant approaches his role aschairman of Snake River Sugar Com-pany, the grower cooperative that ownsthe Amalgamated Sugar Company:“strategic leadership” . . . “thoughtfuland careful analysis” . . . “a leadershipstyle that promotes careful and criticaldecision-making — and that takes ad-vantage of the diverse talents and expe-rience of the members of the board.”

Those are apt terms, descriptive ofa farmer/businessman whose soft-spo-ken, considerate demeanor co-existswith a “push-the-envelope” progressiveattitude toward not only his own farm’sgrowth, but also that of the cooperativehe leads. “I love farming,” affirms the52-year-old south central Idaho pro-ducer. “Every day we get up, and it’s anew challenge with new opportunities.And, you get to work with good people.

“I don’t know [another] industry inwhich you could cover the spectrumlike you do in agriculture. You can be ascientist if you want, a salesman if youwant, a financial analyst. At differenttimes of the day, you have to be allthose things. It’s a great occupation!”

That sort of enthusiasm has pro-pelled Grant since he began farmingfull time back in 1980. Since then, theoperation he heads — Grant 4-DFarms — has grown 50-fold. It is ac-tive throughout a 40-mile radius of thehome farm near Rupert — plus run-ning a couple more farms 160 milesdistant from each other. Grant 4-DFarms produces sugarbeets, potatoes,seed potatoes, wheat, malt barley, cornand hay, mainly on irrigated acreage.It also has an interest in a large dairy.During potato harvest, they employ upto 250 people; on a year-round basis,the operation has about 70 employees.Sugarbeets constitute 25% of the crop

acreage base, and potatoes compriseanother 25%.

That journey of accomplishment re-ally began in 1958 — two years beforeDuane was born — when his father,Douglas, moved from a central Califor-nia cattle and sheep ranch to thescrub-brush desert of southern Idaho’sMinidoka County. He arrived with$5,000 and a single small truck.“There previously had been a few cow-boys here grazing cattle; but otherwise,it was basically ‘frontier,’ ” his son re-lates. “When they arrived, they firsthad to cut the brush, roll it into longwindrows and burn it. Then theypicked rock and did some leveling.”

Initial irrigation efforts on the newGrant family farm — furrow, in thosedays — faced formidable obstacles. “Itturned out our ground was just toosandy,” Duane explains. “You couldn’tget water to run from the top of thefield to the bottom. When it went onthe top, it would leach out all the fertil-izer. The bottom of the field wouldn’tget any water, so it would dry out, burnup and blow away.

“So it was a disaster for a decade,really, until sprinkler irrigation wasmore perfected and became effectiveenough to be installed and used.”

Two technologies — mechanization,led by modern tractors, and sprinklerirrigation, allowing for accurate place-ment of water on sandy soils — “turnedthe corner for them,” Duane continues.“Then ground that had been marginalat best became very productive, andthey started making money. Of course,the price of grain in the early ’70shelped, too,” he smilingly adds.

Duane began his owning farmingcareer shortly after high school. Theidea for the “4-D” name came from hismother, Clarice. “I have two brothers,and it was my parents’ dream, whenwe put the partnership together in1980, that all of the kids would be in-volved,” he recalls. His father’s andbrothers’ names also began with “D,”hence “4-D Farms.” Neither brotherended up pursuing a career in agricul-ture; but the name stuck. (“Now wecall it ‘Deeper, Deeper & Deeper inDebt,’ ” Duane jokes.)

While Grant 4-D Farms has ex-panded greatly under his leadership,Duane gives much credit to his father,who remains keenly interested in theoperation’s strategies and day-to-dayactivities. “I owe him,” he affirms. “Hecarved off a part of the operation andlet me be responsible for it — includingthe ‘making mistakes’ part. He kepthis eyes open and would speak up if hesaw us veering too far off track. But if

4 THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012

A Love of FarmingIdaho’s Duane GrantKeen Interest in Technology, Strong Business Sense & Passion for Ag Drive Snake River Sugar’s Chairman

Duane Grant (right) emphasizes that he couldn’t have asked for a better mentor tohelp lay the groundwork for his own farming career than his father, Douglas (left).

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we were just a little off track, he’d letus take our lumps and back us.

“You never really learn unless youhave times when things go wrong. Heallowed them to go wrong — and thenhe helped.”

It’s apparent Duane Grant’s leader-ship strengths have encompassed nu-

merous areas — both in and out of thesugar sector. Among his many pastand present credentials are these:

• Board member of Snake RiverSugar Company since 2003 and chair-man of the cooperative since 2009.

• Grower spokesperson for theSugar Industry Biotechnology Councilsince 2007.

• Member of the USDA AdvisoryCommittee on Biotechnology & 21stCentury Agriculture (five years).

• Pew Foundation Initiative forFood & Biotechnology (four-year stake-holder).

• Past president of the Idaho GrainProducers.

• Past chairman of several NationalAssociation of Wheat Growers commit-tees, including 10 years as chair of theNAWG Research Committee.

• The 2003 Eisenhower AgricultureFellow.

That’s an impressive list — andonly a partial one. But Grant has noneed for or interest in touting his re-sume. Rather, he views all these func-tions simply as natural extensions ofhis deep passion for agriculture and hisdesire to constantly move it forward.His extensive history with biotechnol-ogy — and specifically the route ofRoundup Ready® Sugarbeet technology— provides a good example.

“Back in the late 1980s, I was in-volved with the National Association ofWheat Growers, and we were all con-cerned about herbicides,” he recounts.“That was during the Delaney Clauseperiod, and we were actively lobbyingboth Congress and regulators, trying tokeep access to those chemistries thatwe needed.

“As a tangent of that, I had the op-portunity to go with a group of wheatgrowers down to St. Louis and tour

Monsanto’s research facilities. Thiswas before ‘Roundup Ready anything,’and I knew nothing about biotech.While touring their very impressive fa-cility, they took us into the biotech areaand gave us a thumbnail of whatbiotech was all about. We asked theMonsanto scientists, ‘So what have youdone with this?’

“ ‘Well, we’ve taken this tomatoplant and made it so you could spray itwith Roundup — and it doesn’t hurtthe plant.’

“I was like, ‘You’re kidding me!’The next thing I said was, ‘Can you dothis in sugarbeets?’ And they’re like,‘What are sugarbeets?’ They werelooking toward soybeans and corn. ButI’d been raising sugarbeets my wholelife, and it was obvious: If there wasany technology we could use in sugar-beets, that was it. So that was the ‘ahamoment’ for me.”

A couple decades would pass, ofcourse, before Roundup Ready sugar-beets became a reality for beet growersaround the country. Grant remainedkeenly interested in the technologyduring the interim, though, and an en-thusiastic advocate for its developmentand commercialization. Numerousfield trials testing transgenic beets

6 THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012

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were conducted on his farm, and he be-came deeply involved with USDA’s ad-visory committee on biotechnology aswell as, later on, the Sugar IndustryBiotechnology Council.

Part of Grant’s intense interest intransgenic beets definitely stemmedfrom his own farm’s experiences withthe “traditional regimen” of herbicideproducts and application timing and

methods. “It was a nightmare,” he re-calls of those pre-Roundup days. “Wehad failures all the time — fields thatwould become unharvestable becauseof our failure to control weeds. We hadan army of people applying herbicidesaround the clock or just at night. Wedid micro-rates, we did maxi-rates, youname it.”

During the 1990s and early 2000s,4-D Farms was raising about 4,000acres of sugarbeets. “We had onesprayer for every 500 acres, so eightsprayers running around,” Grant re-lates. “We’d break them up into twogroups. Each group had its own me-chanic and own supervisor who man-aged the rates — and then the foursprayer operators. They would workwhenever they could. It might be allnight long; it might be 24 hoursstraight because they had a window.

“It was a horrible life. Just lastspring (of 2011), as the Roundup litiga-tion was progressing through thecourts and it was unclear whether we’dbe able to plant Roundup Ready seed,my sugarbeet manager flat-out toldme, ‘If we have to be conventionalagain, I’m quitting. I can’t do it.’

“I’m so glad we got to plantRoundup Ready beets!”

While Roundup Ready has been ahuge advancement, improved

seed technology in general — includingtrait stacking — has also helped sugar-beet growers tremendously, Grant em-phasizes. “On our own farm, 10 yearsago the yield was in the low- to mid-20-tons-per-acre range with about 17.5%sugar,” he notes. “Today, we’re averag-ing in the low 30s with 17.5 sugar. Sowe added a third in gross yield on aper-acre basis in 10 years. That is justphenomenal!

“Part of it is Roundup Ready. But abig part also is that the quality of thisseed, the germplasm, is much betterthan it was in the ’90s. It’s an entireuniverse removed from what it waswhen I started in beets in the late ’70s,early ’80s. And they’re really just get-ting started. That is what’s so excitingto me.”

Irrigation technology is anotherarea that has contributed substantiallyto his farm’s sugarbeet success story,affirms Amalgamated’s board chair-man. “We’re pretty scattered (geo-graphically),” he points out. “We haveon-site managers to control all our cen-ter pivots; but all those pivots areequipped with radios, and I can see atany time what any pivot is doing andtrack its water application for the sea-son.” Lots of growers access their irri-

8 THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012

The management group for Grant 4-D Farms includes, left to right: Mike Larson,manager-agronomy; Duane Grant, partner; Kenyon Miller, manager- construction;Ignacio Cruz, manager-operations; Isreal Robles, director-irrigation; Kalvin Miller,partner; Ryan Miller, director-electrical; and Alan Mohlman, director-agronomy.

gation components via laptops, hepoints out — “and younger guys whoare more ‘techy’ are accessing itthrough their smartphones.

“Information management is whatit’s all about, and those types of tech-nologies let us achieve that.”

Because of the area’s topographyand the original surface irrigation lay-out designs, quite a few fields in south-ern Idaho historically have not lentthemselves to center-pivot irrigation.“Those still have wheel-line and, insome cases, hand-line irrigation sys-tems,” Grant notes. “But pivot irriga-tion is by far the most efficient way togo.” It also is a big driver in the sale orrental of cropland. “If it’s irrigatedwith center pivots, it’s worth $50 to $75an acre more to us than if it’s irrigatedwith wheel lines,” he says. “In a rentalscenario, we simply won’t rent hand-line ground unless it’s incidental to therenting of a larger piece.” Labor is akey reason why. “It’s very expensive(labor-wise), and it’s problematic. Theonly folks you can get who are willingto do that kind of work tend to have‘creative documentation.’ We just don’twant to go there.”

Precision agriculture — e.g., vari-able-rate fertilization and even vari-able-rate seeding — also has found aplace on many sugarbeet farms overthe past couple decades. At Grant 4-DFarms, however, it has a zig-zag trackrecord.

“We were probably among the firstexperimenters/adopters in this areawith some parts of precision agricul-ture — specifically, yield mapping andfertilizer placement,” Duane says. “Wegot into that in a pretty big way in theearly ’90s, mapping by soil type andalso doing some grid sampling. But welater moved away from that becausethe economic benefit didn’t justify thecost. So then we fell back from gridsampling to soil-type topography,driven at that time by Soil Conserva-tion Service maps overlaid with aerialimagery to give us color differentiation.We then applied variable-rate fertilizertechnology to that.”

After several seasons using that ap-proach (supplemented with infraredimages of the crops during the growingseason), the Grant 4-D Farms manage-ment team sat down and discussedwhether it was providing adequatedata for making better managementdecisions. “After we evaluated it all,we decided, ‘No, it’s not,’ ” Duane re-members. “ ‘The cost is high, our yieldhas not improved significantly, and ournets have gone down.’ So we movedaway from it and went back to broad-

THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012 9

Duane Grant is Snake RiverSugar Company’s second chair-

man, succeeding Terry Ketterling ofMountain Home, Idaho, who servedin that capacity from 1996 (the yearSRSC was established) until 2009.Grant joined the SRSC board in2003, so he had an inside familiaritywith the cooperative’s workings priorto taking over the chairmanship.Still, he admits to seeing somethings in a new light since becomingchairman.

“There are a tremendous numberof opportunities available to the co-operative by virtue of our position inthe sugar industry,” he exemplifies.“American Crystal is obvi-ously the largest player,but we’re second largest.So we are in the game.And as the industry movesforward and adapts to dif-ferent market situations,different supply/demandsituations, there are oppor-tunities that can be advan-tageous to our members. Ithink that’s been the biggest sur-prise to me as chairman: Those docome up, and you have to respond —either saying, ‘No, we’re not inter-ested,’ or ‘Yes, let’s develop it andtake it to the board.’ Sugar is ubiq-uitous, and a lot of customers are in-terested in exploring how they candevelop relations with the sugar in-dustry that could provide opportuni-ties to both sides.”

One of the biggest movements bySRSC/Amalgamated in recent yearswas the 2011 establishment of Na-tional Sugar Marketing LLC, a jointventure with cane sugar partner Suc-den Americas Corporation, based inFlorida. “It’s working very well, andwe think it’s the right model for usfor the foreseeable future,” Grantsays of the co-op’s new marketingarm. While Amalgamated previouslysold sugar on a national scale, “therewere some areas of the countrywhere our presence was minimal” —the East Coast being a good example.National Sugar Marketing “gives usa nice tie to both supply sectors —beet and cane — and a more-stablesupply as well, since we can better

hedge the weather risk,” he states.Given the nature of commodity

markets, “the cooperative must al-ways be cognizant of the relativecompetitiveness of beets as com-pared to other crops,” Grant stresses.“We must continuously make invest-ment decisions that will enhanceboth the amount and stability of re-turn to our members.”

Every sugar company empha-sizes that goal, of course — butthere’s one reason why SnakeRiver/Amalgamated’s leadership per-haps feels the pressure even more.Unlike in the nation’s other sugar-beet cooperatives, SRSC sharehold-

ers can surrender andwalk away from theirshares with no penalty.“We are comfortable withthis structure, but it re-quires the cooperative todeliver returns and sustaina vision for the future thatentices members to remaincommitted beet growers,”Grant points out.

“The ability to forfeit also servesto keep the cooperative very sensi-tive to the quality of the interface be-tween our members and thecooperative,” he adds. “For example,the cooperative is investing heavilyto minimize receiving station lines tothe maximum extent possible so thatour members’ investment in harvest-ing equipment is efficiently utilized.”

The Amalgamated growing re-gion is not homogeneous, its chair-man points out — and that realitycan be simultaneously beneficial andchallenging. There are three uniqueareas: the Upper Valley (easternIdaho), at an elevation of around4,500 feet; the Magic Valley (southcentral Idaho), at about 3,500 feet;and the Treasure Valley (westernIdaho and eastern Oregon), whoseelevation is around 2,500 feet. “Thisprovides opportunity to mitigate riskthrough distinctly different weatherpatterns,” Grant says. “But it alsoserves to raise costs, as the culturalpractices — seed, equipment, irriga-tion methods, etc. — are very differ-ent across the spectrum and cannotbe easily mass-replicated.” �

Through the Chairman’s Eyes‘We must continuously make investment decisions that will

enhance both the amount and stability of return to our members.’

Duane Grant

cast application.”Grant doesn’t discount the value of

variable-rate applications for manygrowers, but he believes in his ownfarm’s case, “it could be that we don’thave enough variability in our soils tojustify it. We’ll continue to evaluate it,but we haven’t yet seen where the tech-nology is coming down enough in priceto where we can justify shifting back.”

The quantum leap in on-farm tech-nology has also played out in the use ofGPS — as it has on so many otherfarms. “All our tractors are GPS-guided,” Grant relates. “That’s been a

huge improvement — much more effi-cient use of tractor and man hours.We’re sold on GPS guidance for tillage,for planting. We’re not yet using it forharvest, but we like the technology.

“But it’s also expensive. And it’schanged the kind of people we need tohave. Some of our tractor operatorsdon’t need to have many skills; theybasically just have to be able to sit inthe tractor and put the clutch in ifsomething bad happens. And then wehave another tier of people who need tobe really tech savvy, able to understandthe GPS technology, able to reboot,

reset, reprogram the systems.”Residue management — facilitated

by the Roundup Ready production sys-tem — has been another key area ofchange on Grant 4-D Farms in recentyears. “In sugarbeets especially,Roundup Ready technology has beenrevolutionary for us. That’s a strongword, but it’s accurate in this case,”Duane states. “We are able to consis-tently grow a profitable crop on everysoil type that we have. Under the ‘old’system, we weren’t consistent on anysoil type, and there were some soils onwhich we simply couldn’t grow sugar-beets because they were either tootight — such as some clays where wecouldn’t get the water to infiltrate withthe cultivation we had to do — or theywere too sandy, and spring wind ero-sion would take out the beets.”

Now, on the heavier clay soils,“we’re leaving the residue on top of theground, keeping the cultivator tractorout, doing just one pass in the springwith the strip-till unit, and then plant-ing.” The transition to strip till is on-going, however. “It’s been a learningcurve,” Grant admits. “Residue man-agement is the huge challenge for us.It’s a different system — and differentfor every soil type.

“We thought, for example, that insandy ground, leaving all the residuestanding was the best way to go, thattheoretically it wouldn’t blow — and itdidn’t.” The downside to the standingstubble, though, was that it kept thesoil colder longer into the spring. “Itdidn’t blow, but all of the strip-till plotsfroze out the first couple years. We re-planted, and they were our worstyields.”

Bottom line, “we’ve learned we haveto knock down that residue,” Grantcontinues. “If the residue is fairlylight, we go across with a McFarlaneharrow and then strip till into that.The sun can get onto that ground,warm it up. We had to get away fromthat ‘shade effect.’

“If the residue is heavy — like thatfrom a 170- or 180-bushel grain crop —we’ll go in with a DMI disk ripper.Then we’ll go in and strip till, pullingthe mulch away from the seeding zone.That works really well.”

Grant remains a believer in thestrip-till approach; it’s just a matter ofmodifying the system to fit individualfield conditions. “Behind silage corn,strip till is beautiful. And if we bale offthe straw and it’s sandy ground, we’lljust strip till into that. But if we leavethe straw there or it’s a high-residuesituation, we need to do somethingelse.” — Don Lilleboe �

10 THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012

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Good Things Come from Common Ground

ACH V1 7/12

Dateline:Washington

By

Luther Markwart

Executive

Vice President

American

Sugarbeet

Growers Assn.

— 2012 Elections — President: More than 120.8 mil-

lion Americans voted for President inthis election. With respect to the pop-ular vote, President Obama receivedonly 3.3 million votes (2.7%) morethan Romney, which showed onceagain how divided our nation is whenchoosing its leader. What surprisesmany people is that of the 538 elec-toral votes, the President received332 votes (62%) vs. Romney’s 206votes (38%).

What is also interesting is thenumber of counties that were carriedby Obama and Romney. There are3,033 counties in the U.S. The Presi-dent won in fewer than 750 (24.7%)and Romney won more than 2,283counties (75.3%). The bottom line isthat land does not vote — people do.Democrats prevailed in the urbanareas in key states.

While his win is a result of a bril-liant campaign strategy, the Presi-dent knows that he must lead apolitically divided nation.

There are various benefits to anincumbent being re-elected. Monthsare saved from one administrationtransitioning to another, and it al-lows them to focus on the pressing is-sues faced by our nation. While newcabinet members will be replaced andnew priorities set, it comes withmuch less disruption than a changein presidents.

For the record, the USDA (sugarprogram administration, biotechnol-ogy, crop insurance, etc.) and theTrade Representative’s office haveworked extremely well with our in-dustry over the last four years, andwe look forward to working withthem over the next four years.

Senate: The Democrats and two

Independents picked up Indiana andMassachusetts, making it 55D-45R.We expect Chairwoman Stabenowfrom Michigan and Ranking MemberRoberts from Kansas to continue tolead the Senate Agriculture Commit-tee. We are waiting to see who willfill the committee positions vacatedby Senators Conrad (ND), Nelson(NE) and Lugar (IN).

House: As of this writing, thereare at least 85 new members of theHouse, with six races still being re-counted or contested. It was alwaysclear that Republicans would con-tinue to control the House by rela-tively the same margin. The HouseAgriculture Committee has lost atleast six members who are leavingCongress, and we will see if any othermembers leave to take other commit-tee assignments. If the farm billslips into next year, we will have ap-proximately 200 members who havenever voted on a farm bill. There is agreat deal of work to do in 2013.

— Lame Duck Agenda —Congress reconvened during the

week of November 12 to reorganizeand lay out the agenda for the re-mainder of 2012. The issues sur-rounding the “fiscal cliff” (automatictax increases and spending cuts) andwhat our leaders do — or fail to do —will have the focus of the nation andthe world.

For months, we have been lookingat various scenarios for passing afive-year farm bill. There are multi-ple ways to accomplish it, but untilHouse leadership decides to move for-ward on the “fiscal cliff” issue, noprobability can be assigned to gettingit done this year, and it would thenbe extended and dealt with next year.

12 THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012

— Huge Sugarbeet Crop —Despite the drought, we are look-

ing at a great crop this year. As wewrap up, harvest estimates are thatwe will see a 34-million ton beet crop.This, along with a good cane crop andlarger production, enters a NorthAmerican market that is oversup-plied, and we will be carrying thehighest level of stocks since 1999/2000. World sugar production is up,stocks are building, and prices arefalling dramatically.

With the North American marketawash in sugar under the currentpolicy, the arguments by sugar usersagainst our policy have collapsed. Aswe know, it’s easy to add sugar to atight market, but it takes a long timeto bring an oversupplied market backinto balance.

2013 ASGA — Annual Meeting —

Grower leaders from across thecountry will gather to get the latestinformation on what the electionmeans for the future of U.S. agricul-ture and sugar policy. The legislativeagenda, politics and priorities in the113th Congress; the operation ofsugar policy under the 2008 farm billand the provisions of the 2012 farmbill; biotechnology; an update on theU.S.-Mexico sugar market, and othertopics will take center stage at theannual meeting in San Diego on Feb-ruary 3-5. It is a meeting that nogrower or industry supplier shouldmiss. You can see the program, regis-ter for the meeting and make hotelreservations online at www.ameri-cansugarbeet.org. If you need otherinformation, call the ASGA office at(202) 833-2398. �

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U.S. raw sugar prices continued their recent free-fall,dropping another 9% in October, according to USDA

data. The October 2012 average price was nearly 40% lowerthan October 2011 prices.

And with sugar surpluses building and sustained lowprices on the horizon, industrial sugar users have lost a keytalking point in their lobbying campaign to dismantle U.S.sugar production, according to the American Sugar Alliance(ASA).

“The ‘Big Candy’ lobby has complained of high sugarprices on Capitol Hill for months despite their own increas-ing profits,” said Ryan Weston, ASA chairman, in early No-vember. “Now they have big profits, cheap sugar and a rosyoutlook for the future, so lawmakers will be much less recep-tive to their poormouthing.”

Raw sugar prices dipped as low as 21.5 cents per poundduring October. With 1.7 million tons of surplus overhangingthe market, a strong domesticcrop and subsidized foreignsugar still flowing in under amyriad of trade deals, cheapsugar is predicted for the fore-seeable future.

Weston believes that sugar’sprice reality as other commodi-ties are enjoying record highsproves how well the currentsugar policy has worked forconsumers.

“Our policy doesn’t cost tax-payers a dime. It helps counter subsidies by foreign competi-tors like Brazil, which controls nearly half of the world dumpmarket. And it ensures consistent homegrown supplies atconsistent prices,” he explained.

October’s 21.5-cent low is remarkably similar to rawprices seen in past decades, ASA points out. Prices averaged22.2 cents in the 1980s, 22.0 cents in the 1990s and 21.4cents in the 2000s. More than half of all U.S. sugar-produc-ing operations closed during that three-decade period.

Prices briefly increased in 2010 and 2011, allowing farmers tobegin paying down years of accumulated debt, but have since fallenback to historic depressed levels. Unfortunately for sugar producers,the cost of labor, fuel, fertilizer and other inputs continue to climb,which is why sugar producers are fighting hard to keep a strong pol-icy under the next farm bill.

Sugar’s biggest customers and critics — candy makers —have had more success. “Domestic consumption and produc-tion of candy are on the rise, as are candy prices – a situationthat has helped confectioners achieve profit margins that aresurprisingly higher than major oil companies and even casi-nos,” ASA noted in its early November statement �

2v THE SUGARBEET GROWER (Upper Midwest) November/December 2012

Recent Sugar Prices& the No-Cost Policy

ASA Says Falling Prices of Late Should Help Underscore How the

Program Has Worked for Consumers

‘Our policy doesn’t cost

taxpayers a dime. It

helps counter subsidies

by foreign competitors

like Brazil . . . And it

ensures consistent

homegrown supplies

at consistent prices.’

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It’s a record! That’s the bottom linefrom USDA’s initial estimate of 2012U.S. sugarbeet production, released inmid-November. The estimate placesthis year’s crop at nearly 35 milliontons — 34.95 million to be exact. That’s6.1 million tons larger than the 2011crop and almost 900,000 tons higherthan the previous record, set in 2006.

At an estimated 12.3 million tons,Minnesota again led the way, rebound-ing in big fashion from its 2011 outputof 8.9 million tons. Idaho growers har-vested almost 6.5 million tons of beetsthis year, says USDA, followed byNorth Dakota at 5.8 million and Michi-gan at 4.3 million. California was theonly state in which 2012 beet produc-tion was lower than in 2011.

Harvested area in 2012 was notmuch higher than that of the previousyear, so the big story was in yield. Thisyear’s estimated average yield nation-wide was 28.8 tons per acre — 5.0 tonsabove the 2011 average.

USDA will release another estimateof 2012 U.S. beet production in Janu-ary. There likely will be some revisionsto the November numbers, since not allof the crop had been harvested as of thefirst of November in Michigan and theRed River Valley. �

4v THE SUGARBEET GROWER (Upper Midwest) November/December 2012

U.S. Beet Crop Sets Record

California

Colorado

Idaho

Michigan

Minnesota

Montana

Nebraska

North Dakota

Oregon

Wyoming

United States

2011

25.1

28.7

176.0

153.0

469.0

43.0

51.6

225.0

10.8

30.9

1,213.1

2012

24.5

29.7

182.0

153.0

473.0

46.0

49.0

216.0

11.0

31.3

1,215.5

2011

44.0

28.9

34.4

24.0

19.0

25.9

24.9

20.5

35.8

27.8

23.8

2012

43.0

33.2

35.5

28.2

26.0

28.1

28.2

27.0

37.1

29.3

28.8

2011

1,104

829

6,054

3,672

8,911

1,112

1,287

4,613

387

859

28,828

2012

1,054

986

6,461

4,315

12,298

1,293

1,382

5,832

408

917

34,946

U.S. Sugarbeet Production, Final 2011 & Initial 2012

Source: USDA-NASS November 2012

USDA Places Output at Nearly 35 Million Tons,6.1 Million Higher than 2011’s Production

Area Harvested

(1,000 Acres)

Yield

(Tons/Ac.)

Production

(1,000 Tons)

The very substantial value of the sug-arbeet industry to Minnesota and

eastern North Dakota was reaffirmedearlier this year when economists atNorth Dakota State University releasedresults of their study of the industry’seconomic contributions to the region.

Authored by Dean Bangsund, NancyHodur and F. Larry Leistritz, the studyestimated the regional sugar industry’stotal economic activity in 2010 (direct

and secondary impacts) at $4.9 billion.“Expenditures from processing and

marketing activities and combined ex-penditures and net returns from sugar-beet production in the two-state regionwere estimated at $1.7 billion in fiscal2011,” the study notes. Based on input-output analysis, that $1.7 billion gener-ated another $3.2 billion in secondaryimpacts. As of that year, the region’sbeet sector employed nearly 2,500 full-

time equivalent workers and, based onsecondary business activity, supportedan additional 18,800-plus full-time-equivalent jobs in the region.

The industry accounted for an esti-mated $1.8 billion in economy-wide per-sonal income and $1.3 billion in annualretail sales in 2010. “Also, the sugar-beet industry generated about $105.4million in sales and use, personal in-come and corporate income taxes, andpaid $15.4 [million] in property taxes,”the authors wrote. “Total tax collec-tions were $84.3 million in Minnesotaand $36.5 million in North Dakota.”Minnesota had the larger share of theregional industry’s gross business vol-ume ($3.2 billion or 64%) with NorthDakota having $1.7 billion.

The study covered the sugarbeet in-dustry of the Red River Valley and westcentral Minnesota, which encompassesAmerican Crystal Sugar Company,Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative andSouthern Minnesota Beet Sugar Coop-erative. During fiscal 2011, these threecompanies combined planted nearly653,000 acres of beets and processed15.5 million tons of harvested beets.

“For every dollar the sugarbeet in-dustry spent in Minnesota and NorthDakota, an additional $1.93 in businessactivity was generated within the re-gional economy,” the study authors re-ported. “Each acre of sugarbeetsplanted generated about $7,500 in totalbusiness activity (production, process-ing, marketing and secondary impacts);or, expressed alternatively, each ton ofsugarbeets processed generated about$318 in total business activity.” �

By the NumbersEconomic Activity of Upper Midwest Sugarbeet

Industry Totaled $4.9 Billion as of 2010

6v SUGARBEET GROWER (Upper Midwest) November/December 2012

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Editor’s Note: The science of postharvest sugarbeet man-agement obviously has made major strides in recent decades.Yet the “roots” of this advancement date back to the pre-WorldWar II era, as evidenced by the following excerpt from a 1940USDA Farmers’ Bulletin titled “Sugar-Beet Culture Under Ir-rigation in the Northern Great Plains.” The region referred tohere consisted of Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota.

Hauling the beets to the weigh station the same day thatthey are topped is commonly done. In former years it

was not uncommon to see beets lying in the field after theywere topped. The increased use of trucks has enabled grow-ers to make more prompt delivery of the beets, and the re-ceiving companies have learned that beets that have beenleft overnight in the fields are often noticeably damaged ei-ther by drying out or freezing.

Companies commonly store a portion of the roots in pilesfrom 30 to 60 days before slicing them. Frozen or witheredbeets do not keep well in storage. In these districts, strictrules requiring that only fresh beets be delivered are now en-forced. It is to the grower’s advantage that no frozen beetsbe delivered to the manufacturers, as the price paid for thebeets is directly related to the amount of sugar made. Usu-

ally some arrangement is made for direct processing of anyloads that have been damaged after topping.

The drying-out of beets in the field is greater than is com-monly recognized. During very moist weather, the loss inweight of beets lying in the pile rows may be fairly small, butin the northern Great Plains dry conditions and high windspredominate. The month of October does not normally have1 inch of rainfall, and over 75 percent of the beets are har-vested in October. In this area sugar-beet roots left out inthe pile rows ordinarily lose 5 percent of their weight each 24hours during normal October weather.

Covering the beets with tops greatly reduces this loss.More weight is lost if the beets are in small piles than if thepiles are large. Growers do not like to cover the beets withtops because of the labor involved in covering and uncoveringthe piles, and the beet-sugar companies object when toomany leaves are included with the roots, because the pres-ence of leaves frequently interferes with the slicing of thebeets and is a factor causing increase of rotting in storage.

With the general acceptance of desirability of prompt de-livery, growers, as a rule, now load all the beets the day theyare topped; some companies cooperate in this move to avoidwastage by keeping receiving stations open after dark to re-ceive beets. When the receiving stations are not kept open,growers are urged to cover the loads with leaves. Somegrowers have found it profitable to put canvas covers overtheir loads of beets to prevent frost injury and drying.

An item that needs attention is the rather considerableloss of beets because of overloading of trucks. Because thetrucks delivering beets travel at high speed, many beets arelost off the loads on curves or where the roads are rough.Several tons of beets per day can frequently be picked upalong a highway. As handling often is done by contract, thiswaste is preventable by suitable attention on the part of thegrower and his contractor. �

8v THE SUGARBEET GROWER (Upper Midwest) November/December 2012

Delivering Beets

In the Early ’40s

USDA Bulletin Discusses Methods, Challenges

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As most of you may have heard bynow, it was pretty wet in the northernend of the Red River Valley this fall.

To say that this fall’s harvestWas quite a bit too wet

Would be an understatement,As bad as you can get.

We splashed around in water,We pulled the trucks through muck.

We spent so much time in the swampI felt just like a duck.

I needed someone new this yearTo drive one of my trucks.

I put an ad into The Forum;It cost me just three bucks.

To hire a new man in the fallIs always pretty tough.

You never know if training Will be smooth or pretty rough.

And then you always wonder,Will the new guy bring good luck?

Or will it seem the mud looks forThe new guy to get stuck?

This fall a guy named NoahResponded to my ad.

Said he was bright and willing To do any job I had.

He showed up there in my yard,A large man with a beard.

I asked him where he got his name,It seemed a little weird.

He said he got that nicknameWhen he was only two,

And playing in the water Was his favorite thing to do.

He’s never overcome it,Now he loves to work on boats.

Or mess around the shorelineWith anything that floats.

Quick of mind and quick of hand,And he was very nice.

He learned it all the first time through;I never showed him twice.

He told us that he could workForty days and forty nights.

After that he’d have to leave,His schedule was too tight.

Something seemed a little strange,Coincidence or not.

Ever since the new guy came,It rained an awful lot.

The guys made jokes about NoahAt first behind his back.

I said the weather’s not his fault,Give the guy some slack.

Beet season dragged so very long,We watched the rain come down.

We worked to get the harvest done,We tried hard not to drown.

Your mind can do some strange thingsWorking under that grey sky.

When weather turns against youYou start to wonder why.

I’m not a superstitious man,But it must be more than luck.

Noah was the only driverWho never did get stuck. �

David Kragnes farms near Felton, Minn.A former board chairman of AmericanCrystal Sugar Company, he currentlyserves on the board of directors ofCoBank.

A Wet One

14 THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012

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In the years following his retirementin the early 1990s and well into the

2000s, a tall, slender man — oftenwearing a Minnesota Twins baseballcap — would drive across the RedRiver from his home in Moorhead,Minn., to a popular restaurant neardowntown of neighboring Fargo, N.D.There he’d have a quiet breakfast, usu-ally by himself, occasionally with afriend or acquaintance.

That man was Al Bloomquist. I used to wonder — in the years be-

fore Al’s failing health precluded himfrom making that breakfast stop —how many other patrons of the Fryn’Pan restaurant possessed any idea ofthe impact this soft-spoken, unassum-ing elderly gentleman had on the re-gion in which they lived. Did theyknow that he played a major role inpreserving and expanding the sugar-beet industry — an industry whose di-rect economic impact in Minnesota andNorth Dakota, as of 2011, was esti-mated at $1.7 billion . . . an industrywhose gross business volume as of thatyear was in the neighborhood of $4.9billion? Did they know that fordecades he knew — and was highly re-spected by — many of the real “moversand shakers” in Washington, D.C.?

My guess is that very few of thosefolks sipping their coffee and eatingtheir eggs and pancakes had the slight-est clue. I also doubt that their lack ofinsight or interest mattered at all to Al.

Aldrich “Al” Bloomquist, age 91,passed away on August 6, shortly afterthe July/August issue of The Sugar-beet Grower had been printed andmailed. In subsequent media coverage,he was hailed as a longtime leader inthe region’s sugarbeet industry — andhe certainly was. But many peopledon’t know that Al also established thismagazine — The Sugarbeet Grower —in the early 1960s and owned it until1986. Given that he was a journalistbefore entering the world of sugar, itwas a natural extension for him.

A native of Willmar, Minn., Al en-rolled at Gustavus Adolphus College inSt. Peter, Minn., after high school. Hiscollege years were interrupted byWorld War II, however, during which

he served in the U.S. Navy. He re-turned to Gustavus after the war andgraduated in 1946. Al and his wife of68 years, Meredith, were married whilehe was in the service.

After several years during which heworked at various jobs, including a cou-ple stints with southern Minnesotanewspapers, Al entered the sugarbeetindustry in 1955 as the Minneapolis-based regional manager for WesternBeet Sugar Producers, a group fundedby beet sugar processing companies topromote sales of their product. Whenthe Red River Valley Sugarbeet Grow-ers Association decided to hire its firstexecutive secretary in 1961, they of-fered the post to Al — and he accepted.

His decade-plus tenure with theRRVSGA involved numerous duties forAl; but by far his most far-reaching ac-complishment was to spearhead the1973 purchase of American CrystalSugar Company by Red River Valleygrowers. While the company’s transi-tion into a grower-owned cooperativeobviously wouldn’t have happenedwithout those farmers’ bold financialcommitment, it’s widely agreed that AlBloomquist’s vision, tenacity andstrategical smarts sparked and fueledthe historic venture.

In a 2003 interview with The Sug-arbeet Grower, Al was asked, “What do

you believe would have happened tosugarbeets in the Red River Valley hadnot the growers bought Crystal whenthey did?” He answered: “Well, EastGrand Forks [factory] would haveclosed the next year (1974). That wasalready on the chopping block. Itneeded a lot of work, and the companyhad decided not to invest in it. Hills-boro was not part of Crystal at thattime. So that left Moorhead, Crookstonand Drayton, and they were gettingrun down — minimal maintenance.Actually, Crystal was a company thatwas moving toward the end. They justwere not putting anything back in.”

After American Crystal became aco-op in 1973, Al was named its vicepresident of public affairs, focusing ongrower concerns, legislative issues andpublic relations. He held that post fornearly two decades, during which hemade innumerable trips to Washing-ton, D.C., lobbying on behalf of Crystaland becoming a highly respectedspokesman of the beet sugar industry.He capped off his long career by serv-ing as president and CEO of AmericanCrystal in 1991 and then, for a time, ina consultancy role.

Given the number of lives hetouched, the knowledge he had and therole he played for decades, an entirebook could be written about AlBloomquist — the type of person hewas and his importance to the U.S. beetsugar community. For purposes of thistribute in the magazine he founded,however, we asked three individualswho knew Al well to share a fewthoughts about him. — Don Lilleboe

• George “Bud” Sinner served asgovernor of North Dakota from 1985through 1992. A partner in the familyfarm at Casselton, N.D., since 1952, hewas president of the Red River ValleySugarbeet Growers Association during1975-79. After leaving the governor’soffice, he became vice president-publicaffairs for American Crystal SugarCompany, a post he held until 1996.

“Al had a wonderful calm demeanorand a tranquil mind. He thought histhoughts, and he thought them quietly.He listened to everybody — but he was

16 THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012

Al Bloomquist: A TributeLongtime Sugar Industry Leader — And Founder of The Sugarbeet Grower— Passed Away in August

Al Bloomquist

not persuaded by anything he didn’t re-ally believe. I always admired his abil-ity to take flak — sometimes abuse —and yet stay the course.

“He wasn’t a ‘rabble-rouser’ leader.He was a quiet, persuasive leader whodrew others to understand what he un-derstood. His background was in jour-nalism, but he understood that if arailroad’s going to run, you have to runit. You can’t just let it idle along, notfixing the tracks and not updating. Heunderstood a ton of things.

“I think Al was probably among thefirst to realize that American Crystalhad to have a political action commit-tee. I don’t think it was in the minds ofthe farmers; it was a ‘dirty word’ tomost of them. But reality was, that’sthe way the world ran — and it wasn’tgoing to change anytime soon. So ei-ther you played or you stayed home.

“On the Washington scene, he hadso many friends — in Congress, in theDepartment (USDA) — and his influ-ence was huge. He would remind themof the needs of the sugar farmers.That’s what he always talked about.”

• James Johnson joined the staffof the United States Beet Sugar Associ-ation in February 1989 and became itspresident in 1999. He first met AlBloomquist several years earlier whilea congressional staffer. As president ofAmerican Crystal in the early ’90s, Alsat on the USBSA Board of Trustees.

“As a leader and a founding fatherof the beet sugar cooperative move-ment in the Red River Valley, Al’s expe-rience and expertise ‘spilled over’ andled the way for so many other parts ofthe country. During the past 15 yearsor so, the beet sugar industry has be-come totally farmer cooperative-owned.I think many people would look backand see Al Bloomquist’s work in the’60s and ’70s as essential to that evolu-tion — ground-breaking.

“His credibility was unmatched.Whether it was at the farm gate or thefactory line or in the halls of Congress,Al Bloomquist’s word was his bond.You could bank on it. When he cameinto a room where members of Con-gress were present, I noticed theywould come over to Al to find out whatwas on his mind; he didn’t have tocross the room to them.

“It was a combination of his person-ality and the respect that he earnedthrough decades. I’ve always heardthere are ‘show horses’ and there are‘work horses.’ Al was a work horse whoreally did shine in the ring as well.

“He was a lovely man. I miss himstill.”

• David Berg is president and CEOof American Crystal Sugar Company.He joined the company in 1987 andheld several management posts prior tobecoming president in 2007. Berg firstmet Al Bloomquist in 1979 while work-ing as a reporter for Fargo-based televi-sion station WDAY.

“While working at WDAY, I cameinto American Crystal to ask what theimpact would be when Coca-Cola refor-mulated to use high fructose cornsyrup. Was it going to hurt the sugarindustry? Al was confident the indus-try would be able to absorb it. So herewe are, 30-plus years later. Coke hasused a ‘gazillion’ tons of HFCS sincethen, and the sugar industry is ashealthy as it’s ever been, consideringthe hit it took.

“After I came to work at Crystal, he

remembered me and that conversation,and we laughed about it.

“Al understood the whole picture.He wasn’t an accountant, he wasn’t asalesperson; but he understood all of it.And he understood the people, the rela-tionships — and they were importantto him. That’s why he was so re-spected: intelligence and decency. Heunderstood it all, and he treated youwith respect. It was just nice to bearound him. He was as unassumingand unegoistical a person as you’ll evermeet.

“The stereotype of a lobbyist is thesharpie who always has an angle, who’salways trying to figure out a differentway to convince you to do somethingyou might not be otherwise interestedin doing. That wasn’t Al. He just knewthe whole story, the whole equation,and he used logic, facts — and decency.

“He understood people, he under-stood coalition building with otheragricultural commodities. He workedwith them so everybody knew their in-terests were going to be heard. Then,when he went to a member of Congressor a staff person, they understood theyweren’t going to be flimflammed. Youwere going to get the whole packagefrom Al.” �

THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012 17

‘He was a quiet, persuasive

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understand what he under-

stood . . . [And] he under-

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Were there an “Association of No-Till Sugarbeet Producers,” the

group probably could hold its annualmeeting inside a single beet cart. Re-duced-tillage beet growers? Of course,there’s a lot of that these days. Strip-till beets? Certainly. But bona fide no-till? That’s still a rarity, to be sure.

Three of that rare breed — DanaBerwick, Miles Knudsen and DougSmith — farm cooperatively near thenortheastern Montana community ofCulbertson. While they own and rentground separately, the trio shares laboras well as planting and some harvest-ing equipment. Knudsen and Smithhave raised sugarbeets for a number ofyears; Berwick grew just his third cropof beets in 2012. Like its predecessors,it went in on no-till standing wheatstubble.

Adding to their operations’ unique-ness: all of Berwick’s beet acreage andsome of Knudsen’s and Smith’s is underflood irrigation — their plentiful watersource being the nearby Missouri River.

Why no-till beets? Sandy soils andlots of spring wind lie at the center oftheir answer. “One of the biggest chal-lenges around here is getting the beetsup and established,” Berwick remarks.“They’ll blow out in the wind or dry outin worked ground. Those two problemsare alleviated with the no-till. Theeight- to 10-inch high standing stubblekeeps them from blowing, and thatstraw also helps keep the sun fromcrusting the ground. And, since wedon’t start out with dry dirt, we’re notforced to ‘water up’ the beets as often.”

Plus, no-till saves them time andmoney, the three Sidney Sugars grow-ers concur. “To fall prepare these fieldsis a major undertaking,” Berwick says.“It takes a lot of hours and a lot ofdiesel fuel.”

“You really can’t do any sort oftillage and end up with a prepared beetfield for less than probably $50 anacre,” Knudsen adds. “By just doing agood job of combining [the previousgrain crop] and spending some moneyon row cleaners for the planter, we’resaving that $50 an acre.”

Preparation of the next season’s no-till beet field begins at harvest of thepreceding small grain crop. The key,they emphasize, is distributing thewheat or barley residue as evenly aspossible across the field. The trio runsJD 9860 and 9760 rotary combines withchoppers. “We don’t want a [flat mat]of straw,” Berwick states. “A good chop-per turns it into dust, basically.”

18 THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012

Left: Planting sugarbeets into standingwheat stubble near Culbertson, Mont.

No-Till SugarbeetsWorking Well for N.E. Montana Growers

Photo

: D

on L

illeboe

Photo

: V

anessa P

ooch

The only fall field operation is aglyphosate burndown. Anotherglyphosate application goes on preplantin the spring, usually followed by a posttreatment. “The introduction ofRoundup Ready® Sugarbeets has madeno-till much more feasible,” Berwick af-firms. “It would have been a lottougher, otherwise.”

The beets are planted at a slightangle to the standing stubble with a JD1730 MaxEmergePlus equipped withMartin floating row cleaners. “We putdown liquid fertilizer with the seed,”Berwick explains. “Then we haveSchlagel closing wheels.” Along withthe postemergent glyphosate treat-ment, split applications of nitrogen con-stitute the only other field operationprior to harvest.

That’s aside from irrigating, ofcourse. As noted, while Knudsen andSmith have a mix of center-pivot andflood-irrigated fields, all of Berwick’ssugarbeets are under flood irrigation.“Normally, we allow the beets to comeup on their own,” he explains. “That’sone nice part about the no-till: there’s

typically enough moisture in that soil.”(The 2012 season was an exception,though, due to the very dry spring, sothey did irrigate after seeding.)

Berwick will usually flood his beetfields three times each season. “There’s

a border every 60 or 90 feet, dependingon the field,” he explains. The low-techsystem allows the water to fan throughthe field, with the objective, of course, toprovide an equal volume of water to thebeets at the bottom of the field as those

THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012 19

Right: A cut through one of the bordersallows the water to flow into this flood-irrigated beet field.

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illeboe

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at the top. The timing of an irrigationset largely depends upon the length ofthe field and its soil type (mostly sandy,in Berwick’s case). “You basically justpush water to the end of the field,” hesays. Some of his fields call for an 18-hour set; others as few as three hours.

So how well does it work? While ac-knowledging the water-use efficiencydisparity between a center-pivot systemand flood irrigation, Berwick simulta-neously points out that: (1) he’s not op-erating under water-use restrictionswhen he pumps out of the MissouriRiver, (2) he hasn’t incurred the cost ofinstalling center pivots, and (3) hisfinal beet yields and sugar quality havebeen on par with — or better than —the Sidney Sugars average.

To date, the Culbertson trio’s no-tillsugarbeets have always followed wheator barley. Now that they’ve switchedtheir corn from 30-inch rows to 22s,however, they envision more beets fol-lowing no-till corn, planted between theold corn rows. They’re also consideringvariable-rate seeding.

Is emergence slower in the springwith no-till versus conventional beets?Maybe a little, Berwick concedes. “Butwe’re seeding later up here anyway(compared to the Sidney area) due tofrost — up to 10 days later in someyears,” he says. “So that gives theground more time to warm up.”

No-till beets aren’t the answer formost sugarbeet growers, these threeMontanans understand. “But for us,the benefits have far outweighed anyproblems,” Berwick says. “We don’thave blowouts, we typically haveenough moisture in the soil — andwhen we do water, that old-crop stubbledefinitely helps cuts down on evapo-transpiration.” — Don Lilleboe �

20 THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012

Left: Sidney Sugars agriculturistVanessa Pooch with, left to right,Dana Berwick, Miles Knudsen andDoug Smith.

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Syngenta Awards SugarbeetScholarships to Four Students

Syngenta is investing in the futureof agriculturally focused college stu-dents interested in taking a lead in sug-arbeets. For the third year, Syngentahas awarded scholarships through theannual Syngenta Sugarbeet Scholar-ship program. The 2012 winners areStephanie George of Moxee, Wash.;Connor Cook of Baker, Minn.; AleighicaKeeran of Torrington, Wyo., andMatthew Singer of Vassar, Mich.

“We applaud the decision of theseoutstanding students to pursue a careerin agriculture,” said Tyler Ring, Syn-genta crop portfolio manager for sugar-beets. “Syngenta is honored to supporteducation in the agriculture field, andwe wish our scholarship winners thebest in their college careers.”

Each applicant answered an essayquestion about what has had thebiggest impact on the sugarbeet indus-try and their vision for future improve-ments. Applications were evaluated forcreativity, flow and professional appeal.The winners were chosen out of 42 ap-plicants, all with an involvement in 4-Hor the National FFA Organization (for-merly Future Farmers of America).

One scholarship recipient summa-rized her thoughts on the future of sug-arbeets when she wrote, “By continuingresearch, selecting for improved charac-teristics and implementing more effi-

cient farming practices, I believe thatthe sugarbeet industry will successfullymeet the demands of consumers in theyears to come.”

Sugarbeet scholarship opportunitiesfor 2013 will be announced by Syngentaat the American Sugarbeet Growers As-sociation meeting in San Diego, Calif.,in February.

Minn-Dak Building $70.3 Million Molasses Desugarization Facility

Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperativebegan construction this fall on a $70.3million molasses desugarization add-onto its sugarbeet factory at Wahpeton,N.D. Construction of the facility, whichwas formally approved by the co-op’sboard of directors in late August, is ex-pected to be finished within two years.

Minn-Dak shareholders will con-tribute approximately $24 million to-ward the project through the 2014 crop

campaign. Sales tax exemptions wereapproved by Richland County and theState of North Dakota. About 20 full-time positions will be created by the ad-dition of the desugarization andload-out facility.

37th ASSBT Biennial MeetingScheduled for Feb. 27-March 2

The American Society of Sugar BeetTechnologists will celebrate the 75thanniversary of its founding during theorganization’s 37th biennial meeting, tobe held on February 27-March 2, 2013.The meeting takes place at the Disney-land Resort, Anaheim, Calif.

The event begins on the 27th withregistration, poster setup and theevening President’s Reception. A gen-eral session is held on the morning ofthe 28th, followed by agricultural andoperations technical sessions that after-noon and throughout the next two days.

Around The Industry

THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012 21

Stephanie George Connor Cook

Matthew SingerAleighica Keeran

PRESIDENT AND CEO Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative is seeking an executive to lead the Cooperative, its members and employees. Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative is a North Dakota Cooperative owned by approximately 475 sugarbeet growers located in North Dakota and Minnesota. The Cooperative processes

produced.

shareholders while at the same time maintaining the Cooperative’s outstanding reputation within the Beet Sugar Industry and the communities in which it operates.

Senior executive experience demonstrating competence and ability in leading a major business.

Able to lead the development and implementation of a Strategic Vision for the Cooperative.Demonstrated leader and developer of people.Able to clearly articulate and communicate the organization’s vision and position with

industry.

Business experience in the sugar industry and/or a Cooperative is considered a plus.

sandberglaw@702com.net

Simone Sandberg

The 2013 ASSBT meeting concludeswith the traditional awards banquet onthe evening of March 2.

Complete meeting information canbe found on the ASSBT’s website —www.bsdf-assbt.org.

2013 International Sugarbeet Institute March 13-14 in Fargo

The 51st edition of the InternationalSugarbeet Institute will be held March13 and 14, 2013, at the Fargodome inFargo, N.D. The ISBI is North Amer-ica’s largest sugarbeet industry tradeshow. The 2012 event in Grand Forks,N.D., showcased about 125 exhibitorsand drew more than 2,300 visitors.

Featured speakers at the 2013 ISBIwill be Luther Markwart, executivevice president of the American Sugar-beet Growers Association, on the 13th;and Howard Dahl, president of AmityTechnology, on the 14th.

Any companies desiring exhibitinginformation for the 2013 InternationalSugarbeet Institute can contact ex-hibits coordinator Bob Cournia at (218)281-4681. Other ISBI-related ques-tions should be directed to Dr. Mo-hamed Khan, organizing committeechairman, at (701) 231-8596.

Louisiana-Based AUM Now Known as Crompion International

Baton Rouge, La.-based specialtystainless steel producer American Util-ity Metals (AUM), LLC has changed itsname to Crompion International, LLC.The name change and rebranding comeas the company works to expand itsglobal presence and reinforce its focuson creating solutions through new serv-ices and additional metallurgists onstaff, notes President George Shaffer.

Since 2000, AUM has supplied anddistributed Cromgard, a high-perfor-mance, low-nickel stainless steel to aloyal base of worldwide customers in abroad range of industries — includingthe sugarcane and sugarbeet sectors.During that time, it has evolved into acompany that goes beyond a singlegrade of stainless steel offerings to pro-vide solutions to customers’ needs andnow reflects this evolution in its trans-formation into Crompion International.

Betaseed Hosts Ag Safety Day for Kids in Three Beet Communities

22 THE SUGARBEET GROWER November/December 2012

Betaseed sponsored, organized and participated in three Progressive AgricultureSafety Day events in September. This is the third year that Betaseed has been in-volved with the Progressive Agriculture Foundation. The first event was held in Wah-peton, N.D., in 2010 and since has expanded to Argyle, Minn., in 2011, and Mitchell,Neb., in 2012. In 2012, more than 400 third, fourth and fifth graders in these commu-nities received safety training and education on several topics, including fire safety,bike safety, drug awareness, seatbelt safety, PTO safety and grain handling safety.

Betaseed plans to continue to partner with the Progressive Safety Day Foundationand sponsor these events in areas where sugarbeets are grown. Betaseed employ-ees Rene Scheurer, Cody Lehman, John Dillman, Jason Evenson and Duane Bern-hardson are trained coordinators and are in the planning stages of organizingadditional Progressive Agriculture Safety Days for 2013. The mission of the Progres-sive Agriculture Safety Day Foundation is to provide education and training to makefarm, ranch and rural life safer and healthier for children and their communities.

Now That’s One Hefty Sugarbeet Root — 34.5 Lbs Worth

Sidney Sugars decided to have a little fun during this fall’s harvest, so the ag staffsponsored its first “Big Beet Contest.” This year’s winner was John Asbeck of theSugar Valley station (Fairview, N.D.), who brought in this one weighing 34 lbs, 8 oz.Shown with it in this photo are Sidney Sugars agriculturists Todd Erickson (left) andDuane Peters. (No word on its sugar content.)

2013 ASGA Annual MeetingFebruary 3-5

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