Snake River sugar beet growers highlight crop risks, labor needs and reliance on glyphosate

Zach Patterson, president of the Snake River Sugar Beet Growers Association, told the Idaho House Agriculture Affairs Committee that sugar beet producers in southern Idaho face year-to-year weather and disease challenges, rely heavily on glyphosate herbicides and consider labor the industry’s top concern.

"One hundred percent of the acres in Idaho and Oregon and Washington are reliant upon glyphosate," Patterson said, describing glyphosate as a "complete game changer" for weed control and production efficiency. He said growers plant in late March or early April, contend with pests and diseases through spring, and begin harvest in September.

Patterson also raised labor as the association’s top priority, saying growers depend on federal visa programs and are watching federal policy closely. "Labor's been the number 1 issue," he told committee members, noting concerns about long-term residency and the uncertainty produced by enforcement tools such as E-Verify.

Committee members asked about long-term trends in beet versus cane production, disease pressures including cercospora, and farm-level automation. Patterson said sugar-beet and sugar-cane shares of U.S. production vary year to year and noted local concerns about weeds developing resistance to glyphosate. On automation, he said factories will see the most change, while tractors on farms have improved but generally still have operators.

Patterson also reviewed production context: he said roughly 9,000,000 tons of sugar are grown in the U.S. annually (about half from beets), Americans consume about 12,000,000 tons of sugar, and the U.S. imports roughly 3,000,000 tons to meet demand. He described seed, planting depth and the early-season vulnerability of young beets as key agronomic details affecting yields.

After his presentation the committee moved to a related presentation from Amalgamated Sugar Company.