Farmers have begun harvesting a crop that’s almost unique to southern Alberta. Sugar beets are grown in southern Alberta and Ontario. Farmers began harvesting them on Wednesday, October 1. They are expecting a good crop this year even though some fields were damaged by hail.
“In spite of three hail storms it’s doing fabulous,” said Dwight Perry who farms east of Coaldale. “Yes we’re really satisfied,”
Mike Uytdewilligen added, “It looks good, above average definitely, maybe not quite as good as last year but really good.
The last two month’s warm weather definitely has improved what it’s going to be.”
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Southern Alberta is the only place in Canada that grows sugar beets for the Canadian market. Ontario grows a smaller amount to export to the U.S. Last year farmers in Alberta grew a record 27 tonnes of sugar beets per acre. They are expecting 25 to 26 tonnes per acre this year.
Andrew Llewelyn-Jones, Agricultural Superintendant at Lantic Inc. in Taber said, “Some of the areas are going to be a little bit better than others. We had some significant hail and storm damage this year, particularly south of highway 3 between Taber and the Tempest, Coaldale area. Some hail impacted the crop’s development but some very good crops have developed in the Bow Island and the Vauxhall areas.
Farmers didn’t plant as many sugar beets this year. Last year they grew 30,000 acres of sugar beets. This year they planted 24,000 acres of them.
“With the record crop that we produced last year we had a lot of sugar, more sugar than we could sell at that time,” said Llewelyn-Jones. “But we’ve made great efforts to sell that sugar in the last 12 months.”
Close to 200 farmers in southern Alberta grow sugar beets. Lantic Inc. in Taber makes sugar from them. Most of the sugar is sold in western Canada with a smaller amount exported to the U.S. Farmers are hoping for good weather to complete this year’s harvest.
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