Last fall, this region s growers harvested nearly 15 million tons of beets or, about 45 percent of the entire 1998 U. S. crop. The number takes on added significance when you consider that more than half of the sugar produced within the United States during the 1990s has come from sugar beets, with the remainder from sugar cane. Sugarstone arrives in the Twin Ports via ship and is later transported to sugarbeet processing plants. Beet Sugar Cooperative produce and process all the sugar beets in this region. These cooperatives also jointly market their sugar and co- products.
Beets meet limestone in seven factories in Minnesota and North Dakota.
Nearly 30 counties in the Red River Valley and southern Minnesota have sugar beet acreage within their boundaries. There are seven beet processing factories in the region, five owned by American Crystal and one each by Minn-Dak and Southern Minnesota. Together, these seven factories can receive and process more than 50,000 tons of beets every 24 hours and do so for several months each year. The sugar beet is of the same plant family as red beets and spinach, and of the same species as table beets, Swiss chard and fodder beets. Its center of origin is believed to be in the Middle East, near the ancient Tigris and Euphrates river valleys.