Michigan's sugar beet growers in fight against 'corn sugar'

Round-Up-resistant sugar beets growing at the Laracha sugar beet farm in Reese. Rye is grown in the field and allowed to get pretty high, then the field is sprayed with Round-Up, killing everything but the beets. The dead rye works as a buffer for the wind, protecting the young sugar beets.

These days, the sugar industry is anything but sweet.

It's beets and cane versus corn, with a lawsuit recently filed after Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill started rebranding high-fructose corn syrup as a more healthy-sounding "corn sugar."

The Michigan Sugar Co., the Bay City-based sugar beet farmers' co-op, is one of the three original plaintiffs. Michigan growers rank No. 4 in the country, producing 1-billion-plus pounds of sugar annually.

The plaintiffs claim the repositioning of high-fructose corn syrup -- a nutritional pariah because of allegations it causes obesity -- deceives consumers, and they want a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to make the corn syrup producers stop their attack on "the goodwill of 'sugar.' "

According to the lawsuit, high-fructose corn syrup producers, concerned about declining sales, decided to run ads saying corn sugar is the same as cane and beet sugar and that it's a natural product, claims the plaintiffs say are false.

The defendants are bitter about the attack on their "Sweet Surprise" campaign.

"High-fructose corn syrup and sugar are nutritionally and metabolically equivalent," the Corn Refiners Association said. "The name 'corn sugar' more accurately describes this sweetener ...It is disappointing that another sweetener would sue the competition for its own gain -- and stand in the way of consumer clarity about added sugars in the diet."

Ultimately, the debate over sugar (the sweetener) comes down to sugar (slang for money).

Sugar beets, grown largely in Michigan's Thumb, contribute $450 million to the state's economy annually.

Cane, beet growers join forces in fight

Small green leaves peek out of the soil in row after row, acre after acre, on the Bauer brothers' Laracha Farms in Reese, Saginaw County.

Beneath the dirt, packed down with protective dried rye, grow the sugar beets that will wind up in your morning coffee, in your apple pie, in your medicine chest.

Michigan is the U.S.'s fourth-largest grower of this subterranean sweet treat, processing more than 4 million tons of beets every year, according to the state Department of Agriculture. Though not as glamorous as, say, cherries or peaches, sugar beets have a $450-million-plus economic impact, thanks to an estimated 1,100 farms, or 150,000 acres, in the state, mostly in the Thumb region.

"It's a staple. And you're not buying sugar beets; you're buying sugar," said Charles Bauer, 56, explaining why many people in Michigan aren't aware that sugar beets are a major crop. "With fruit and that stuff, you know where it comes from. Sugar beets are more of a commodity."

He and his fellow sugar beet farmers belong to the Michigan Sugar Co., a co-op where every fall its members truck their product to be processed. It then shows up in supermarkets as bags of Pioneer or Big Chief sugar, while the byproducts of Michigan sugar processing find their way into medications and road de-icers.

A sugar beet resembles a white turnip and can weigh as much as 4 pounds. According to sugar beet experts, its sugar content is 18% and processing can collect 83% of it. On average, an acre of land has 25,000-35,000 sugar beet plants and yields 25 tons of sugar beets with 270 pounds of sugar produced from each ton for 6,750 pounds of sugar per acre.

This year will not be one of the better ones, because weather delayed planting.

"We like to be done by the time we started this year," Bauer explained, adding that seeds were put in the ground in mid-April, as opposed to late March and early April.

Despite this season's hiccup, the Thumb is perfect for growing this crop, first brought to the region by European immigrant farmers more than a century ago.

"Michigan, particularly in the Thumb, is particularly well suited for sugar beets," said Michigan State University Extension senior sugar beet educator Steve Poindexter. "We have nice loam soil. We have a moderate climate that's not extremely hot and we have a good rainfall."

Now, this crop -- dubbed a mortgage maker -- is under attack by another: Corn.

In April, the Michigan Sugar Co. and other sugar groups sued the high-fructose corn syrup makers for renaming their product "corn sugar," claiming it misleads consumers. They seek an injunction to stop the high-fructose syrup makers from marketing it as a natural product equivalent to real sugar, and from using the term corn sugar, plus damages.

These food manufacturers say that metabolically, ounce for ounce, high-fructose corn syrup and table sugar from cane or beets are the same, but according to Andrea Garber, an assistant professor and nutrition expert at the University of California-San Francisco, there are two difficulties with that claim.

"The biggest problem is you can't make ounce-for-ounce comparisons," she said. "The way corn is grown and subsidized in the U.S., it's so darn cheap that food manufacturers put it in everything. We're not making an ounce-for-ounce exchange of table sugar for high-fructose corn syrup. In fact, we're eating massive amounts of high-fructose corn syrup. ... If manufacturers had to put real sugar, they would not be able to make such a big profit."

The second issue involves the chemical make-up, Garber continued. Table sugar is about 55% fructose and 45% glucose, but recently, high-fructose corn syrup has been shown to contain 65% fructose. Glucose and fructose aren't metabolized the same way; the latter has been linked to increased fat production.

Bauer, who is vice chairman of the co-op's board of directors, declined to comment on its federal lawsuit, saying only, "Sugar beets have sugar in the plant. All we do to get sugar out of the plant is to remove the impurities. That's why beet and cane is pure sugar."

He added that there's no difference between cane and beet sugar -- probably why the two joined forces in the courtroom -- though privately each favor their own: "Sugar beet people like sugar beets better and sugar cane people like sugar cane better. It's just like Michigan and Michigan State. Both have very good football teams, but both have an allegiance to one or the other."

source: freep