America’s sugar beet farmers, long reliant on the robust demand for their crops, are facing an unprecedented crisis as domestic consumption plummets and stockpiles balloon.
For years, these white-fleshed root crops provided over half of the nation’s domestically produced sugar, shielding growers from the volatility of other agricultural markets.
However, this year marks a stark departure. A dramatic decline in US sugar consumption, coupled with excess imports, has led to a significant glut.
Refined beet sugar prices have fallen by 33 per cent from a year ago, reaching their lowest point since 2019, with the oversupply projected to persist until at least 2026.
The downturn is primarily attributed to Americans simply eating less sugar.
While a long-term trend of declining consumption began in the 1990s with the rise of artificial sweeteners, this has recently been exacerbated by inflation, which has curbed spending on sweets and confectionery.
A significant factor is also the growing popularity of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which are reducing overall food expenditure, particularly on sugary items.
According to a study by OC&C Strategy Consultants, nearly 9 per cent of the US population now takes GLP-1 medications such as Wegovy and Ozempic.
This demographic is reportedly spending 6 per cent less on chocolate and sweets, and 10 per cent less on sweet bakery products.
Further compounding the issue, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. controversially labelled sugar and ultra-processed foods containing it as “poison” in April.
His Make America Healthy Again commission’s inaugural report in May referenced added sugars and sugar consumption at least 22 times, linking them to serious health conditions like diabetes and childhood obesity.
“All of a sudden consumers were starting to buy less food at the grocery store, so food manufacturing companies needed less sugar,” said Robert Johansson, former USDA chief economist and current director of economics and policy analysis for the American Sugar Alliance, an industry group that advocates for the beet and cane sugar industries.
Farmers this year planted their smallest sugar beet acreage since 1982.
One near-century-old plant in Brawley, California, owned by the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative, will shut down after processing its last crop this year, the company said, blaming import competition, post-pandemic inflation, weak sugar prices and “uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment.”
Sugar beet growers maintain that consumption of sugar, in moderation, is healthy and that the MAHA commission’s focus should be on unnatural sweeteners.
“You need to consume it in moderation, just like anything else,” said Michigan farmer Clint Hagen, adding “Our product’s natural. We’ll let the science dictate that.”
Hagen is tightening his belt in the face of likely financial losses from sugar beets this year, delaying needed equipment upgrades in hopes of surviving for another season.
But cutting sugar beet production is not an option. Like the majority of U.S. producers, his shares in the local farmer-owned sugar processing business require him to grow and deliver his quota of beets.
“If you’re sick and tired of sugar beets right now and you want out, you need to find somebody to buy those acres away from you,” he said.
Pain in the beet belt
Sugar is the most protected agricultural commodity in the United States. The government uses import controls, based on supply estimates and anticipated demand, to discourage cheaper foreign sugar from flooding the US market.
The controls also help ensure that American food manufacturers have enough to meet consumer demand.
Domestically-produced sugar supplies around three-quarters of US demand, roughly 54 per cent from sugar beets and the rest from sugar cane.
Some 3,000 to 4,000 farms across the northern United States and the West Coast now cultivate sugar beets, with Minnesota and neighboring North Dakota representing nearly 60 per cent of all US plantings.
The remainder of demand is supplied by imports from dozens of countries including Brazil and the Philippines under programs that grant low-tariff or duty-free access for limited volumes.
Hagen is harvesting his drought-hit crop near Ubley, hoping to meet most of his production costs that have swelled some 30 per cent in recent years.
Rising labor costs and fuel, pricey weed killers and costly fungicides to fight the yield-sapping cercospora leaf spot disease that chokes crops and thrives in Michigan’s humid climate drove his per-acre outlay to as much as $1,500, up to 25 per cent above average.
“Sugar beets require the most fertility, the most specialised equipment, the most crop care, fungicides, herbicides, all that type of stuff,” he said.
Hagen needed seven or eight fungicide applications this summer, up from three or four in the past, and many of the chemicals are imported so tariffs have driven up prices.
Hoping just to break even
In the heart of beet country, just 11 miles from “the world’s largest sugar beet” in Halstad, Minnesota, farmer Neil Rockstad is tuning up his trucks and equipment to prepare to harvest another bumper beet crop.
Normally, beets are an economic cushion for his operation in Ada, Minnesota. As trade wars, foreign competition, and rising costs dampen his profits on corn, soybeans and wheat, forcing him to rely more on crop insurance and government aid payments to pay bills, sugar has been a bright spot.
Sugar beets need specialised equipment and time, making them costlier to grow than other row crops. And since many farm needs like fertiliser, machinery and parts are produced overseas, US President Donald Trump’s tariff wars have driven costs even higher.
That means that income from sugar beets may not cushion Rockstad from losses on other crops.
“Knowing that you put all that time and work into it and aren’t going to pull any profit out of it, but hopefully enough that you can stay in business for another season, yeah, it’s frustrating,” he said. “There won’t be a lot of black ink at the end of this season.”
Further west in Idaho, the No. 3 sugar beet state, farmer Galen Lee is feeling similar pain.
“I think break-even would be the best on sugar beets. And usually they’re the crop that helps carry the mortgage for everything else and pay the bills,” he said.
About a fifth of his 1,300-acre patch is planted with sugar beets, with the remainder devoted to corn, alfalfa, asparagus and mint.
He rents a more-than-decade-old harvester to keep costs down. Buying a new European-build machine now would cost more than $1 million, up from around $750,000 five years ago, due in part to import tariffs.
Crop insurance and government aid payments have helped offset some losses in past years, but future payments proposed by the White House are far from certain and they do not fully cover all production costs.
Were it not for more than a forecast $40 billion in government aid to farmers this year, US farm incomes this year would be down for a third straight year.
“These programs are not designed to allow you to make a profit,” Lee said. “They’re designed to keep you from bleeding quite so badly.”
