Sugar Update

Terri Adams of Ag Weekly recently suggested that things are looking very good for farmers in Idaho given that warm weather has arrived and the season got off to a better start than last year. Steve Hines, Extension educator for Jerome County stated that "It has not been a warm spring until just recently, but the weather is nice and the soil has warmed up." Well, alrighty then. I called Mark Duffin, Executive Director of the Idaho Sugar Beet Growers Association for an update knowing that last year there were lots of problems with weather and many sugar beet growers had to replant. "The status of the sugar beets, this is not an official report, but the crop is planted in the growers that I have talked to feel it is pretty good and it is coming along. We are ahead of where we were last year with the re-plants due to bad weather." I asked Mark about the issue regarding Mexico dumping sugar imports into the world market and he basically asked me to call somebody else in the sugar industry. That comes in another report.