Montana sugar industry‘s future uncertain

By SUSAN GALLAGHER, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 10, 3:16 AM ET

HELENA, Mont. - Strong grain prices and Montana‘s oil boom are leading to questions about the future of the state‘s beet industry and its sugar factories.

That is no small consideration as the region‘s surging oil industry siphons laborers for $22 to $25 an hour, making it hard to hire farm help at a lesser wage.

Farmers recently rejected a proposed contract for next year‘s crop and will vote on another proposal this week through their organization, the MonDak Beet Growers Association.

Beet acreage under contract for this year is around 15,000 acres, the lowest since 1932 and about half what Sidney Sugars wants. Land where beets grew previously has been turned over to wheat, malting barley and corn, said Ben Larson, a Montana State University agricultural specialist in Sidney.

The Sidney Sugars plant, just west of the Montana-North Dakota line, is not the only one struggling. Spreckles Sugar announced this month that its plant in Mendota, Calif., west of Fresno, was closing for lack of beets.

In past years, growers in the Sidney area had little doubt that beets would be their crop and discussions with the sugar plant occurred in March. The current negotiations are happening months earlier because Sidney Sugars knows growers are looking at alternative crops, Sing said.

The price of sugar has not changed much in the past 20 years, but the price of Montana wheat has roughly tripled in the past five years.

Timing of the contract negotiations in Sidney is critical given that autumn is when farmers prepare their fields — cultivating, leveling and fertilizing — for the coming crop season. The kind of work done varies with the kind of crop to be grown.

Overall production-tax revenues for oil and natural gas in Montana have increased from $30.8 million in 1999 to $324 million in fiscal 2008.

As the negotiations continue, "the thing we‘re trying to do is let everybody know that maybe somebody‘s got to make a sacrifice someplace," Smelser said. "There are just too many jobs at stake."

source:onelocalnews