Northern Colorado sugar beet farmers taste sweet times

GREELEY — Sugar beets are back on the northern Front Range in a big way.

Earnings are up, production is high and Richard Seaworth — a second-generation sugar beet farmer near Wellington — is happy.

“This is the best sugar beet crop we’ve ever had here,” said Seaworth, whose family works 600 acres.

He and the Western Sugar Cooperative said a variety of factors have boosted this fall’s harvest, including a season of ideal growing conditions in Colorado and damaging weather in India that wiped out much of its sugar cane crop.

That prompted many countries to become importers of sugar from the United States. This will help produce good payouts to many of the 300 Colorado members of the Western Sugar Cooperative, said Mike Otto, senior agriculturist with the co-op.

“This is a very good year, and it will make a little money and help farmers remain in business,” Otto said.

The Western Sugar Cooperative was formed in 2002 out of about 1,000 sugar beet growers in Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana.

This year, about 39,700 acres of sugar beets were harvested in Colorado, up from 31,700 last year, Otto said.

Farmers are still awaiting the final payout tally for this year, but in Wellington, payments to co-op members are projected to reach $3.2 million this year, up from $1.6 million in 2008, he said.

“It will allow a lot of them to pay some bills,” Otto said.

A relatively cool and wet spring and summer helped the sugar beets, which also were spared high winds and late freezes.

Seaworth also was quick to point out that new techniques — including genetically modified seed — also helped. The seeds make for stronger, more disease-resistant plants.

“It’s a classic case of science and nature working together,” Seaworth said.

In Boulder County, genetically modified seeds came under fire from organic growers who claimed they could be a health hazard. A proposal to allow six sugar beet growers in the county to use genetically modified seeds on county-owned open space has been shelved.

Seaworth said there was little argument about the modified seeds’ effectiveness. “We’ve outperformed every expectation,” he said.

Still, he didn’t see sugar beets attaining the same stature they enjoyed in the early 1900s. Sugar-refinement technology helped produce sugar factories in just about every town and city along the northern Front Range.

But falling sugar prices in the 1970s — and the sale of Great Western Sugar Co. in 1974 — along with foreign competition led to sugar’s collapse in Colorado.

Fort Morgan remains the only operating sugar beet-processing factory among the original 14 Great Western Sugar plants, according to Fort Morgan historian and City Council member Lyn Deal.

But this fall’s harvest gives Seaworth hope that he and his son can remain in the sugar beet business.

“We’re not going to take a year-long cruise,” Seaworth said, “but at least we can keep things up around here and pay our bills.”

Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com