Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

WORLAND — With three freezes during the growing and harvest season this year, Wyoming Sugar had to abandon 5% of its crop.

Wyoming Sugar concluded the harvest on Nov. 18, according to the company’s president and CEO Mike Greear. He said based on preharvest estimates they were able to harvest 92% of the tons they were estimating and 95% of the acres but had to abandon 5% of the acreage. Greear added, “That’s not bad given the weather.” He said there was a small freeze in May, and then during harvest on Oct. 9 and a harder freeze on Oct. 26.

The majority of the acres that had to be abandoned were from Big Horn County growers. In an earlier interview, Greear said the freezes hit Big Horn County growers the hardest.

Fortunately, he said, he believes the majority of the growers who had acres abandoned do carry crop insurance.

He said they harvested 333,000 tons this year, compared to the 362,000 tons estimated before the harvest.

“The factory is processing a poor crop very well, but at the end of the day it’s the amount of sugar. We are a sugar factory not a beet factory,” Greear said. “Because of the two freezes [in October] we will probably have about 20% less sugar produced out of this crop than what we were estimating going into the harvest.”

Sugar content is averaging 17.4% but the sucrose (which the company crystalizes) levels have been affected because the freeze damage has caused the sucrose to break down into simple sugars.

He added, “Given the conditions, we’re doing OK.”

As for the impact on the growers, Greear said they will need to wait until December to set the payment for the year but with tonnage and sugar content down, payments will be down, he said.

He noted that the size of the beets were larger due to growth between freezes but they beets were light with not much content.

“We pay on a per ton basis with a quality adjustment based on how high or low the sugar content is for their crop,” Greear said.

Greear said last week that they were finishing up slicing the frozen beets and then would be getting to the better beets that were harvested prior to the freezes. He said they have about 60 days of slicing left with a projected end date of Jan. 20.

Regarding fulfilling contracts for sugar, Greear said they market with United Sugars Corporation, who also partners with American Crystal Sugar Company, Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative and U.S. Sugar. He said American Crystal and Minn-Dak had wet conditions and just one hard freeze during harvest, with Minn-Dak leaving about 30% sugarbeets in the field and American Crystal 35% in the field.

Grear said as a result, United Sugar was oversold with its customers. He said they have provisions to meet customers needs.

He added that this is when the United States sugar program kicks in. The [U.S. Department of Agriculture] through our agreements with Mexico will be able to allow more Mexican sugar into the market to keep customers supplied as we get through this weather event.

“Hopefully everyone comes out the other side OK. It was pretty devastating. It hurt us and it will affect us but it hurt some other people really bad.”

The Powell Tribune, via the Wyoming News Exchange reported that “Western Sugar Board Vice Chairman Ric Rodriguez said that within the Lovell Factory District — which includes producers in the northern Big Horn Basin — 31% of this year’s planted acreage will not be harvested.”

Greear said, “Our growers and our employees, everybody should be pretty proud of this company. We had a good year last year and were on stable ground. We made a lot of improvements to the factory. We made a firm commitment to our employees. Then we hit a weather event here that, it was difficult for our growers to dig the crop, it was difficult for us to receive it. It’s been difficult for us to process it and we’ve been getting it done. I think if you went back in prior years we wouldn’t have got in that much of a crop. We wouldn’t have been in this position. While it ain’t great everyone needs to be proud of this small company and how nimble and committed it is to being here and doing a good job.”

“This is going to one of those great learning years that everybody gets a lot of lessons learned and we’re just going to be stronger and better for it,” he said.

Greear added, “I’m glad we were in a position to get through this. The guys got done digging and they took their equipment to their neighbor’s field. That’s just the way we did it and that’s why we got things done.”