Beet slicing shortened by months after harvest cut short

By COLLIN GALLANT on November 23, 2019.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

A disastrous sugar beet harvest will not only hit farmers in southeast Alberta, but drastically shorten a heavy production period at the Lantic Sugar Facility in Taber.

Early this month the company that produces Rogers Sugar announced that frost and cold weather in October led it and its contracted growers to leave as much as half this year’s expected bumper crop in the ground.

This week, the company’s year-end financial report states that with only half the the expected crop delivered it would end its beet slicing campaign in December, about two months ahead of schedule.

The facility employs about 90 full-time workers and up to 40 seasonal workers during harvest and initial processing, according to contracts the company has with the United Food and Commercial Workers.

It’s not known what effect the smaller harvest will have on ongoing operations.

The company stated in the outlook portion of its year-end report that they expect deliveries to Taber to produce between 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes of refined sugar, down from a forecast of 125,000 tonnes.

That could be made up through a combination of delaying some customer orders and using excess cane sugar refined at its Vancouver and Montreal facilities to meet customer orders.

Lantic expects sales figures in the next year to be essentially on par with projections.

From a corporate standpoint, a shorter slicing campaign will also help the company avoid additional costs related to the carbon tax, which will come into effect in Alberta on Jan. 1, 2020.

Savings from the elimination of the Alberta Carbon Levy previous to the start of the campaign in September totalled $2.7 million, it stated.

Harvest stalled

Heavy snow in most of the province that halted harvesting of crops is now melting and making further progress almost nearly impossible, according to the Alberta Crop Report.

Progress is lowest in northern portions of the province and Peace country, where only two-thirds of canola acres are in the bin. That drops the provincial canola figure to about 80 per cent complete.

In the southern region, about five per cent of canola is still standing, but most major crops are in.

Provincially, 89 per cent of all crops are harvested, lower than in Saskatchewan where the aggregate figure is 93 per cent.

Farmers in Saskatchewan’s southwest were able to make the most progress on bringing in crops.

Reports from Districts 4A and 4B, comprising the areas around Leader and Maple Creek, report harvest is 98 and 99 per cent complete, though the percentage drops moving eastward.

Near the Alberta boundary, grain drying is underway, and while an on-again-off-again harvest is over, fall-seeded crop acres are down as a result of poor fall weather.

Most livestock producers in the southwest are reporting adequate surplus supplies of hay heading into the winter feeding season.