Harrison Weber

FARGO, N.D. -- The Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association has announce that Harrison Weber has been named as the Association’s new executive director. 

Matthew Krueger lost 60% of the sugar beets he raises near East Grand Forks, Minn., with his father and brother to wet conditions and freezing temperatures. Ann Bailey/Grand Forks Herald

American Crystal Sugar Co. told its shareholders this week that they will receive $37 per ton for the 2019 sugar beet crop.

The fall harvest has been a difficult one for Minnesota’s sugarbeet farmers.

Starting in October, fields were too wet for many farmers to dig beets from the ground. Then, in the past two weeks, a series of frigid days froze the unharvested beets still in the fields — and the harvest was officially declared over. Nearly one-third of this year’s crop remains frozen in the ground.

And then, more bad news: Farmers now have to pay their cooperatives for the beets they were unable to harvest.

“This is far and away the worst [year], as far as beets left in the field,” said Dan Younggren, who has raised sugarbeets near Hallock, Minn., for about 40 years.

Younggren was one of many of the 2,800 members of the Moorhead-based American Crystal Sugar cooperative who were forced to leave beets in the ground to freeze over winter. He’s had to leave 40 percent of his fields un-harvested.

"It's a devastating hit to all of agriculture right now," said Younggren, who is also president of the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association.

Sugarbeets are different from many other crops grown in Minnesota, in that farmers become members of a cooperative, which processes and markets the crop, returning a payment to farmer-members. The largest sugarbeet co-op in Minnesota is American Crystal Sugar, which planted nearly 390,000 acres of sugar beets this year. About 118,000 of those acres will remain in the ground because fields were too wet this fall for harvest.

It’s been a tough harvest for every crop grown in the region. Farmers fought through mud to harvest crops during a wet fall, and this year’s sugarbeet losses come on top of several years of low crop prices and an ongoing trade war with China.

"This is going to have a tail that's going to last many years, for many people, trying to pull themselves out of this,” said Younggren. “It's going to be some tough skidding, no doubt."

Adding insult to injury, the sugarbeet farmer-members are now required to pay American Crystal Sugar Cooperative for each acre of beets not harvested.

American Crystal Sugar did not respond to a request for information about the harvest, but several growers confirmed that, as part of their contract to grow sugarbeets for the cooperative, they must now pay $343 for every acre they’ve left in the ground.

The money will help cover operating costs for the cooperative’s five sugar processing plants. Normally, the operating costs come from the sale of sugar, but because the cooperative will be processing a third fewer beets this year, farmers need to shoulder the extra cost.

"We're a co-op. Sometimes you thrive together, sometimes you suffer together,” said Younggren. “You have to share in the cost of keeping the company alive, so that's the number they came up with, [and] that's the number we'll live with."

For Younggren, that will mean paying about $170,000 for a crop he didn't harvest, in addition to the money he spent growing the crop he didn’t harvest. Part of that loss will be covered by insurance.

Sugarbeets are cooked and processed into sugar, molasses and pulp used for livestock feed. Beets account for more than half of the eight million tons of sugar produced in the U.S. every year, and sold in stores or used in food production. Sixty percent of U.S. sugarbeets are grown in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Three sugar-producing cooperatives run the sugarbeet industry in the region around western Minnesota and eastern North Dakota. American Crystal is the largest. Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative, based in Wahpeton, N.D., and Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative, based in Renville, Minn., each have about 500 grower-members.

Minn-Dak Cooperative couldn’t be reached for information about this year’s harvest.

But for the farmers of the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative, whose fields are a couple hundred miles south of the Red River Valley, the harvest went more smoothly. They were able to harvest 99 percent of their crop.

“We’re feeling very fortunate, compared to some of our friends to the north,” said the co-op’s vice president for agriculture, Todd Geselius.

But even in southern Minnesota, the harvest wasn’t perfect. While most of the co-op’s sugarbeets were harvested, a wet spring delayed planting, which meant the crop fell short of average in both yield and sugar content, key measures of how much farmers are paid for the crop, said Geselius.

"Chances are it's not going to be a great year -- certainly not good enough to make the kind of payment we would like to make to the growers,” he said.

Sugarbeet farmers in southern Minnesota had a record harvest in 2017, but very wet conditions since then are likely to make this year the second of below-average payments in as many years.

Up north, farmers will likely pivot from harvesters to spreadsheets -- factoring insurance payments for lost crops against the cost of growing the crop -- to better understand the full impact of this year’s late planting season and incomplete harvest.

There may also be payments from a USDA disaster assistance program, but farmers are waiting for more information about that process.

Dan Younggren said he plans to meet with his crop insurance agent and spend some time crunching numbers to grasp the full economic impact of leaving so much of his crop in the field.

"The dust is still flying, as they would say, so as soon as the dust settles, then we'll know,” he said. “You can pencil a loss -- now it's a question of how much of a loss it's going to be."

This fall’s sugar beet harvest is the worst in decades in northwestern Minnesota and North Dakota, another blow in a difficult year for American farmers and one that is quickly rippling through the nation’s food supply.

The reason: Rain and snow kept farmers in much of the region out of fields until the sugar beet crop had been damaged by frost. And the problem for sugar supplies broadly was made worse by the cold snap earlier this week that extended deep into the southern U.S., where sugar cane harvests were also harmed.

As a result, sugar prices have been rising in commodity trading this week on expectations that U.S. farmers won’t be able to meet demand and food producers will have to turn to imports.

Two major distributors of sugar, including Edina-based United Sugars Corp., reportedly took the rare step this week of declaring “force majeure,” telling customers they won’t be able to deliver on contracts because of forces beyond their control. An executive of the company didn’t return calls for comment Thursday.

But with sugar already extremely cheap — selling for just under 13 cents per pound on commodity markets this week — and companies able to bring sugar in from elsewhere, the poor harvest should have little effect on food prices for consumers.

In the Upper Midwest, it’s difficult for harvesting equipment to pull sugar beets out of frozen ground. Data is still being collected, but farmers in some parts of Minnesota and North Dakota lost more than one-fourth of their crop.

“This is hands-down the worst harvest we’ve had in 48 years,” said Mike Metzger, a vice president of the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative, which operates a sugar beet processing plant in Wahpeton, N.D., for about 500 farmers, including 350 in Minnesota.

Minnesota is the largest sugar beet-growing state in the nation, and North Dakota is the second-largest. The two states account for over half of the nation’s sugar beet acres.

Both the August pre-harvest and the full harvest, which typically starts Oct. 1, were delayed because the ground was too wet. Farmers usually harvest about one-tenth of their crop for immediate processing in August and September. The rest is harvested later in the fall, then piled up to freeze for processing through the winter. A burst of rain at the end of September delayed the October harvest, and farmers never caught up.

“It just didn’t quit,” Metzger said. “We kept getting rain showers. We got buried with a couple inches of snow. And we got hit with some freezing temperatures.”

American Crystal Sugar Co. farmers in the region, most of them farther north than Minn-Dak farmers, lost more than a third of their harvest. Growers told the Grand Forks Herald that they must pay American Crystal $343 for every unharvested acre. The money will help the cooperative cover the operating costs of its processing plants.

Executives at American Crystal did not respond to a request for comment.

Western Sugar Cooperative, which represents farmers in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Nebraska, also declared a force majeure this week. “These are the worst weather conditions we have had as a cooperative,” Heather Luther, its general counsel, told Reuters. The Denver-based cooperative dates to 2002.

The trouble for sugar beet growers and distributors comes after farmers of corn and soybeans were walloped by rain-driven planting delays and the loss of key export markets due to the trade wars. In Minnesota, as of early this week, the corn harvest was about two weeks behind its average pace while nearly all of the state’s soybeans were harvested.

At this time of year, harvested sugar beets are generally stored in piles on the ground next to sugar factories because, thanks to their high water content, the bulk of the pile stays frozen even when temperatures briefly warm up.

But when they’re still in the ground, getting frozen and then thawing again renders a sugar beet almost worthless. “That freeze-thaw, freeze-thaw damages the tissue,” Metzger said. “We can’t store something like that.”

Those beets “juice out” when they’re piled up so they can’t sit long enough to be processed.

Minn-Dak took unusual measures to try to accept as many sugar beets as possible. The cooperative allowed farmers to stockpile beets on their land, accepted frozen beets directly into the processing facility and accepted beets that don’t meet their standards for heat.

“We absolutely did everything we could and threw away our playbook on receiving sugar beets, to try to get as many acres as we could,” Metzger said.

For farmers in southern Minnesota, the harvest went well.

“We actually harvested 99% of our crop. We only left a few acres,” said Todd Geselius, a vice president of the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative near Renville. “We’re feeling very fortunate.”

“That’s the hardest part, to have a crop out there and know we couldn’t get it, and now, we have to mow it off,” Siegert said Wednesday, Nov. 13, as he stood in the field east of the Hillsboro American Crystal Sugar Co. factory. The field that Siegert’s son, Lee, was shredding was one of several that make up the 1,050 sugar beet acres Siegert raises with his business partner, Paul Kozojed.

Siegert hoped that by Friday, Nov. 15, the shredding would be done, and he would be finished with the 2019 sugar beet crop.

"We are shredding tops off them for, hopefully, next year’s crop,” Siegert said. “You get rid of the crops, so the tops will dry out and not catch a lot of snow, and things will be more rotten and dry out better, and you won’t have to deal with a matted mess."

Siegert and Kozojed, who call their business SK Farms, had to leave 860 acres of their sugar beets in the field after American Crystal halted the harvest Saturday, Nov. 9. The company made the decision because freezing temperatures and excessive mud made the sugar beets it was receiving unsuitable for processing. American Crystal Sugar Co. received about 7. 5 million tons -- 66% -- of its total crop before it ended the 2019 harvest.

Siegert and Kozojed, like other farmers, who had to leave sugar beets in the field will have to pay American Crystal Sugar Co. $343 per acre they were unable to harvest. The company will use the money to pay its fixed costs.

This, Siegert’s 40th year of farming, has been the most challenging. That’s despite raising sugar beets during the drought of ‘88, when he harvested only 10 to 13 tons of sugar beets per acre. This loss hurts more because the 2019 crop, unlike the 1988 crop, had high yield potential, Siegert said.

“This is probably one of the biggest crops we ever had. We probably had 35, 40 tons per acre,” he said.

The moisture that helped produce the large yields also was the downfall of the sugar beet crop. The spring started out wet and the growing season ended wet.

“We just never got a break,” Siegert said. ”I kept thinking ‘It’s going to dry up and we’re going to be OK.’ Then it rained in August, then it rained in September, and then it rained in October, and I said this (the harvest) is not going to happen.”

Leaving 860 acres of sugar beets in the field this fall will take a big bite of SK Farms' finances.

“I would think we’ll go backwards a considerable sum,” Siegert said.

After receiving crop federal crop insurance payments, SK Farms will lose roughly $200,000 to $300,000 this crop year, he estimated.

Because input costs and machinery costs are high, it will be harder this year to dig out of the red than it was during the farming crisis of the 1980s, Siegert said.

“The numbers are different. The dollars are different. You can go $100,000 backward so quick. Land rent is three times what it was back then," he said. “Back in the ‘80s, I bought a tractor for $40,000. Today you can pay $300,000 to $400,000 for a row-crop tractor -- and you wouldn’t get much.”

Siegert already knows that, under the best circumstances, next spring will be challenging.

“Nobody’s got fall tillage done. Nobody’s got any fertilizer done. We’re going to be under the gun again," he said.

Siegert leans on his Christian faith to help him navigate through the ups and downs of farming, talking to God on his own and taking part in men’s prayer groups at his church.

“It’s easy to be a Christian when things are good. It’s hard to be a Christian when times are tough, but you have to,” Siegert said.

Farmers who grow sugar beets for American Crystal Sugar Co. were unable to harvest about one-third of the crop, said Jeff Schweitzer, American Crystal Sugar Co. spokesman. The company received about 7.5 million tons of sugar beets this fall, Schweitzer said. American Crystal Sugar Co. typically receives about 11.5 million tons of beets each harvest.

The Moorhead-based company told farmers Saturday, Nov. 9, that it was halting the harvest because it is not economical to process the sugar beets, which were in poor condition and had high levels of mud and leaves mixed in with them. The decision to end the 2019 harvest came two weeks after American Crystal Sugar Co. informed its growers it would accept 1.2 million tons of frozen beets. The company typically does not accept frozen beets.

The 2019 sugar beet harvest was stymied by wet weather from the start, when both the onset of the pre-pile harvest in August and the full harvest in October were delayed by rain and, later, snow. Harvest conditions only got worse as October progressed; a storm dumped as much as 2 feet of snow on already saturated soil, leaving fields too muddy to support harvest equipment.

In late October, temperatures dropped into the upper teens in some areas, then dipped into the lower teens in early November, freezing the beets..

This is the first time farmers in the Red River Valley have had to quit harvesting sugar beets because of freezing temperatures during harvest, growers for American Crystal Sugar Co. said Tuesday, Nov. 12.

“This is definitely one for the record books,” said Matthew Krueger, who farms near East Grand Forks, Minn. Krueger was unable to harvest about 450 acres of sugar beets, which represents more than 60% of his crop, he said.

“It probably would have been one of our biggest crops ever,” Krueger said. Now, instead of topping the sugar beets to prepare them for digging, he is preparing for the 2020 planting season by cutting off the tops so they can rot in the field. Then, Krueger hopes to plant a different crop and put 2019 behind him.

Farther south on the North Dakota side of the Red River, Jason Siegert, of Hillsboro, is shredding the sugar beet tops of more than 800 acres with a corn shredder. Siegert had to leave about 80 percent of the 1,050 acres he planted this spring because his fields were too wet to harvest before they froze.

“We’re going to leave them, and hopefully, winter and spring is good to us and we can plant something,” Siegert said. He’s not sure what he will plant in the fields next year, he said.

“It’s kind of all new ground. We’re trying to figure out what to do,” Siegert said.

Federal crop insurance will cover some of his losses, Siegert said. But Siegert, like the other farmers who couldn’t harvest their sugar beets, will have to pay American Crystal Sugar and for him, that will amount to roughly $280,000. Even with insurance, he will come out in the red this year on his beet acres, he said.

“That’s a tough pill to swallow,” Siegert said.

Krueger said crop insurance basically pays for part of what farmers could have harvested in a typical year, but it does not pay extra for fixed costs.

Neither Siegert nor Krueger are certain about how the reduction in the sugar beets American Crystal Sugar Co. receives will affect processing, but they speculated it will cut it short by at least a couple of months. Processing in the company's five factory districts usually is completed in May or June.

Schweitzer said American Crystal Sugar Co. is not answering any questions beyond verifying the halt of the harvest Nov. 9 and the amount of tons the company has received.

American Crystal Sugar Co. will hold factory district meetings in East Grand Forks, Hillsboro, Drayton, N.D., Crookston, Minn., and Moorhead next week.

It has been a long season for most, the same goes for the sugar beet farmers. 

The beets are frozen in the ground but as long as the farmers can get to them they will be delivering to Minn-Dak Farmers Co-op. 

This is the first time Minn-Dak has gone through a season like this one, so they've had to change up the playbook.

The co-op knows the beets from here on out are going to be frozen, so now the focus is on getting beets and not frozen mud chunks which the co-op and growers are taking extra steps to prevent.

Mike Metzger, VP of Agriculture for the Minn-Dak Farmers Co-op talks more about the 2019 harvest season for the farmers of Minn-Dak.