In Michigan, planting continued to be behind schedule, but growers have made substantial planting progress. Still, some sugar beet fields remain to be planted with a few to be replanted. Several consecutive days of warm, dry conditions this past week allowed producers in Minnesota to make significant planting progress. While in North Dakota, planting progressed until the return of rain over the past weekend. The wet conditions continued to force producers in many parts of the state to delay planting and other fieldwork.

U.S. farmers have experienced long delays in sowing the 2011 sugar beet crop due to persistent wet weather in the upper Midwest.

Soggy soil is blamed for delaying the planting of sugar beets, the crop that accounts for more than half of the country’s supply of sugar.

In Minnesota, none of the crop has been planted, compared to 77 % last season at the same date. Similar conditions exist in North Dakota where the crop is not yet underway. The crop was 76% complete last season at the same date. In Idaho 48 % of the crop has been planted, up from 18% last week but down from 77% last season at the same date. In Michigan, 13 % of the crop has been planted, up from 12% last week but down from 100% of the crop last season at the same date. In Colorado, 20% of the crop has been planted, down from the five-year average of 49%. In Montana, 10% of the crop has been planted, up from six percent last week but down from 52% last season.

A delay in sugar-beet plantings could reduce yields of the sweetener, since the root’s sugar content increases the longer it is in the ground. After they are harvested, the beets are shredded and boiled to extract the sugar. The beets also need to be harvested by October, before cold weather hits.

The U.S. needs to import sugar every year, but the USDA operates a limit for low-tariff or duty-free imported sugar to protect domestic producers. The U.S. government is likely to increase imports of the sweetener if this year’s sugar-beet harvest is significantly lower than normal. The USDA earlier this month increased the import quota for the first time this season after record cold slashed sugar-cane output in Florida.

The U.S. consumes about 11.5 million tons of sugar a year, according to the USDA.

In early February, USDA announced interim rules by which beets with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready genes can be cultivated, harvested and handled for the next two seasons while USDA completes a court-ordered environmental study. Several organizations, including The Center for Food Safety, Sierra Club and organic growers immediately asked White for a restraining order and injunction blocking the plan.

White concluded a three-year lawsuit in August by revoking the beets’ deregulated status until the more-thorough study is complete. White left it to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service how to regulate the crop in the mean time.

To attack the interim plan, plaintiffs maneuvered to attach the challenge to an ongoing suit in which White is already leaning their way. Closely following the August decision, USDA issued permits to cultivate stecklings, the root stock for seed plants. In the lawsuit that followed, plaintiffs argued the action violates the National Environmental Policy Act, and White said he was inclined to agree.

White said he cannot consider the injunction in conjunction with the earlier suit because it addresses the new environmental studies that support USDA’s interim plan. Those studies didn’t exist when the stecklings suit originated, so the plaintiffs must file a separate challenge to address them, White said.

On Feb. 4, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) authorized the planting this spring of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready beets. This action was a response to a ruling last summer by a San Francisco federal judge that the USDA take over again the regulation of Roundup Ready beets, including doing long-term study into the environmental impacts.

The sugar beet industry filed suit seeking to get the federal court to throw out some of APHIS’ conditions for planting the beets because they “pose an unnecessary burden,” according to the Sugar Industry Biotech Council.

Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, and organic growers, including the Organic Seed Alliance, fear that planting Roundup Ready beets and other crops will breed weeds resistant to the herbicide and contaminate organic crops with the genetic modification.

American Crystal grows about half the nation’s sugar beets. Roundup Ready beets first were approved by USDA in 2005, and the past three years have been used increasingly by American Crystal growers.

“After conducting an environmental assessment, accepting and reviewing public comments and conducting a plant pest risk assessment, APHIS has determined that the Roundup Ready sugar beet root crop, when grown under APHIS imposed conditions, can be partially deregulated without posing a plant pest risk or having a significant effect on the environment,” said Michael Gregoire, deputy administrator for APHIS’ biotechnology regulatory services. “This partial deregulation is an interim measure until APHIS is able to complete a full environmental impact statement.”

Pursuant to the partial deregulation, growers of RR sugar beet root crop will be required to enter into a compliance agreement that outlines mandatory requirements for how the crop can be grown. If APHIS determines that the mandatory conditions of the partial deregulation set forth in the compliance agreements are not complied with, APHIS has the discretion to revoke, withdraw, or otherwise cancel the conditional partial deregulation for root crop production.

Further, APHIS may use the full range of its Plant Protection Act authorities to impose civil and/or criminal penalties and remedial measures, including seizure, quarantine, and/or destruction of root crop that is in violation of the mandatory conditions of the partial deregulation. APHIS has also issued its decision to continue to regulate the seed crop through its permitting process.

In 2005, APHIS granted non-regulated status to RR sugar beets. However, in early 2008, a lawsuit was filed challenging APHIS’ decision. On Sept. 21, 2009, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found that APHIS should have prepared an environmental impact statement (EIS) prior to making a decision to fully deregulate RR sugar beets. On Aug. 13, 2010, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a ruling vacating APHIS’ decision to fully deregulate RR sugar beets and remanded the matter to APHIS. APHIS is currently developing an EIS prior to making any further decision on the petition for a full deregulation of RR sugar beet. APHIS expects to complete the EIS by the end of May 2012

On December 6, 2010, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary stay of Judge Jeffrey White’s November 30, 2010, ruling requiring destruction of sugar beet stecklings (seedlings) currently being grown under permits from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). The stecklings are intended for research and breeding purposes, as well as basic seed and hybrid seed production for 2012 and future years. The Appeals Court granted the stay of the district court’s order until December 23, 2010, and, in the interim, the Court will determine the next steps in the proceedings.

The beet sugar industry’s growers, processors, technology providers and seed producers are pleased that the Court of Appeals will now have a meaningful opportunity to consider relevant legal precedents and unrebutted evidence that the planting of these permitted steckling fields is authorized by law and would cause no harm.

The appeal comes after U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ordered the destruction of genetically modified (GMO) sugar beet seedlings planted in Oregon and Arizona. Judge White found that the seedlings were planted in violation of federal law and in disregard of his previous ruling that banned the planting of GMO sugar beets until the USDA completes an Environmental Impact Statement.

Monsanto, the maker of the sugar beet seeds, has also indicated it would appeal the judge’s order.

The USDA’s proposal represents the preliminary stage of the process and will be followed by a 30-day comment period before the department makes a final decision. The USDA laid out three possible options in the proposal, including an option not to re-approve the sugar beets, but said its preferred course of action would be to “authorize the commercial production” of genetically modified sugar beets under strict regulations.

The USDA remains in a legal battle with groups seeking to halt all production and planting of genetically modified sugar beets because of concerns that the plants contaminate nearby non-biotech crops.

Sugar from sugar beets will account for about 60 percent of domestic U.S. production this year. If farmers can’t plant genetically modified seeds next spring U.S. sugar production will be cut by about 20 percent according to an estimate provided by the USDA.

March sugar futures on the New York’s ICE exchange rose to a nine-month high of 30.19 cents a pound Tuesday–nearing February’s high of 30.40 cents/lb–before pulling back to 29.93 cents/lb.

Source: Dow Jones Newswires

To read the entire story, visit Wall Street Journal.

According to a copy of the complaint provided to Reuters by the plaintiffs, the USDA’s decision violates an August court ruling that prohibited future plantings of genetically modified sugar beets. Last week, the USDA announced it would issue permits for seed producers to make plantings that would not be allowed to flower.

But the plaintiffs, which include the Center for Food Safety and the Sierra Club, argue in their lawsuit that these plantings could still contaminate neighboring crops. The complaint asks a judge to forbid the planting of any genetically modified sugar beet plants.

For the full Reuters story, click here.

American Crystal Sugar Co. of Moorhead, Minn., already is seeing pre-pile yields averaging 20 tons per acre. Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative of Wahpeton, N.D., is running in the “mid-20s,” which both sound more like yields for mature beets in October.

Crystal has 500,000 shares of stock, but shareholders were allowed a “tolerance” of planting acres totaling 80 to 85 percent of their preferred shares of stock. A total of 420,000 acres were planted.

Jeff Schweitzer, Crystal spokesman, says that even with the pre-pile harvest starting at a record early date on Aug. 17, Crystal growers were advised in early August that they initially are allowed to harvest up to 70 percent of preferred shares. Growers who planted a higher percent at the start would have more acres to cut back, proportionately.

The board of directors will make a decision on whether those set-aside acres can be harvested after the full stockpile harvest is under way, Schweitzer says. That harvest traditionally starts Oct. 1, but it sometimes is moved up a day or two. When full harvest is 50 percent complete, the board starts evaluating whether “at risk” acres will be harvested.

Pre-pile harvest typically runs four weeks and brings in 10 percent of the total crop. This year’s pre-pile will run six weeks and will bring in about 15 percent of the crop.

“Quite honestly, it’s not a position the company likes to put the shareholders in, and it’s not a position the shareholders like to be in,” Schweitzer says.

The decision to leave some beets in the field is a way to right-size the harvest with the processing capacity of the company’s five factories.

Projected numbers

Crystal’s projected yield is in the “upper 20s” for tonnage. The previous record was 25.5 tons per acre in 2007. The 2009 yield was about 23.5 tons per acre. The current payment estimate for the 2009 crop is $50 a ton. If realized, this would be the third time in four years the payment has hit that level. In 2008, the payment was $47 per ton.

Even the pre-pile harvest numbers are impressive. Yields already are averaging 20 tons, ranging from 12 to 25 tons per acre.

Meanwhile, Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative’s pre-pile harvest also started Aug. 17. In the first couple of weeks, the co-op harvest was bedeviled by high temperatures. Now, the harvest has been stopped by “our old friend enemy — rain,” says Tom Knudsen, vice president of agriculture.

Minn-Dak planted 114,600 acres this year, about the same as last year, Knudsen says.

The “latest, greatest” yield estimate for the 2010 crop, announced internally on Aug. 19, was for a total crop of 28.8 tons per acre, which would be a record. Even in the pre-pile harvest, there are hints of just how huge the crop is.

“Yieldwise, we’re all over the board,” Knudsen says, of the pre-pile crop, but he estimates results already are in the “mid-20s” in tons per acre, which is more often a figure for a final yield.

“Those are numbers we’ve never seen on Sept. 1 and prior,” Knudsen says.

Sugar content so far has been in the 11 to 12 percent range, which is “not catastrophic,” considering the time of year, Knudsen says. Sugar content levels increase in September, especially with warm, sunny days and cool nights.

He says that while Minn-Dak had a weather-reduced crop in 2009, co-op officials last November started warning producers that acreage cutbacks might be necessary because of yield results in other co-ops from here to Michigan.

As an example, a grower with 100 shares had been allowed to plant 160 acres, but now have been told they’d only be able to harvest 140 of those acres. The co-op will be spot checking with GPS for compliance.

SES Vanderhave sales manager Nick Revier says his company has enough conventional seed to cover the Red River Valley, if it’s needed.

“I do have enough conventional seed to cover every Roundup Ready order, if we have to go that way, we can plant conventional varieties, but it’s really way too early to anticipate what the US Department of Agriculture-APHIS is going to do, so we’re just going to kind of play it by ear and be prepared for either.”

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White found in September 2009 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had deregulated a variety of genetically modified sugar beets without conducting an adequate environmental impact report

Click for the full story.

“It’s encouraging to see,” Fullmer said about the increase in acres from 2009. “We’re optimistic about the upcoming crop.”

While many area crops have seen its value dip, the price of sugar beets have held strong.

“I’m not sure where the price will be next fall, but right now the sugar prices are where we want them,” Fullmer said.

Read the full story … click here.