by Evelyn Pyburn, Big Sky Business Journal
While it’s looking like another good year for the sugar beet business, the industry faces a serious challenge in public perception regarding the healthfulness of its product.
The sugar beet business would most likely not even be alive, today, in Yellowstone County, if it were not for the development of “Round-up” resistant beets, but anti-GMO public sentiment against that same technology now threatens the industry from a different direction, according to Randal Jobman, Northern Agricultural manager for Western Sugar in Billings. Countering that sentiment, which stems from a lack of understanding about what Roundup resistant beets really are, has become a significant part of his job, Jobman told the boards of Big Sky Economic Development and Economic Development Corporation at their monthly meeting. “It’s a big battle,” said Jobman.
Since the Roundup resistant beets were introduced, in 2008, Yellowstone County’s beet industry has had a number of good growing years. Crop yields have increased 30 percent, said Jobman, who reported that harvest has begun early this year because of good weather, with an “excellent crop” yielding higher than average tonnage and a five percent higher sugar content.
Prior to the introduction of Roundup resistant beets, the industry was in peril, said Jobman. With up and down years in terms of production, and with production costs running $1000 per acre, the future looked bleak. Much of that cost involved the application of chemicals to combat weeds, weeds that would have quickly succumbed to the chemical glyphosate, which is the ingredient in the commonly known brand name, Roundup. But the chemical killed most sugar beet plants as well – but not all of them.
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Source: The Big Sky Business Journal is a family-owned and operated business based in Billings, Montana. It was started by Dennis and Evelyn Pyburn in 1982, making it the first business publication in the state. It is the only independent business publication (not associated with daily newspapers) in the Montana.
