Payments up in the air, but beet harvest rolls on
- Media Logic Radio
- Nov 3
- 4 min read
News | Oct 31, 2025
Colorado Sen. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, said a number of sugar beet growers — as well as other commodity producers who face the same issues — have reached out unable to meet their loan deadlines due to the closures of federal offices that is preventing them from paying their loans and receiving payment for the year’s crop.
“They’re concerned they’re not going to get paid from the Commodity Credit Corporation, which in turn pays the FSA office, which in turn pays the sugar beet growers. I talked to Jerry Sonnenberg and he said the offices are ready to pay, but there’s no money allocated from the CCC and that’s not going to happen until the shutdown is over.”
Sonnenberg is the state executive director of the Farm Service Agency. This not only affects this year’s crop, but next year’s as well, with loans for next crop’s seed also hanging in limbo. Pelton said he reached out to U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., asking him to vote to open the government.
“I asked him to do that, and told him we can have the conversation about illegal immigrants receiving federally funded healthcare later,” he said. “We can get this all fixed later if that’s what they need, but right now we need this damn thing to be open.”
Hickenlooper’s staff said they received confirmation that Secretary Brook Rollins and the administration are reopening county offices with limited staff trying to get disaster funding as well as other program funding authorized to producers. However, he was unwilling to vote to open the government.
SHUTDOWN IMPACT
The state’s sugar beet growers are only one of the commodities sweating the ongoing federal shutdown. Without Farm Service Agency offices open, the growers are unable to be paid for this year’s crop, pay their loans, or set up their loans for next year which will allow them to purchase seed.
David Blach, a Yuma County grower and member owner of Western Sugar, said processing has gone smoothly thus far which will reduce the amount of time the beets are stored on the ground and, in turn, will reduce the losses.
Blach said the federal closure carries short- term and long-term problems, though the long-term issues are hard to define yet. He said the local FSA office is open with half staff during the busiest time of the agriculture production year. This not only places a heavy load on the shoulders of the staff working, but it does so with no promise of receiving pay.
Many beet growers — and other commodity growers, too — have loans through the Commodity Credit
Corporation for operating expenses. Those funds are not available and there’s no word on how long the delays will be.
Blach said most of the seed is also spoken for by the end of the year, and growers are without the final payment on the old crop and the first payment on this crop. Leases and operating notes are also coming due for many growers.
Blach said the evolution of sugar beet harvest is impressive.
“The plants are centrally located now, and we don’t have many going on the rail at all now,” Blach said. “Back in the day, there were horse drawn wagons and an amazing amount of work and labor. We’ve evolved all the way to today where we’re starting to see some self-propelled machines out in the fields now as well with some being down to one machine in some of these fields which eliminates labor and other tractors.”
Blach said he anticipates growers in Yuma County will wrap up harvest by the middle of the first week of November.
PETE’S BEETS
Brush, Colo., grower Pete Bolinger wrapped up his 10th year growing sugar beets with a sweet harvest.
Coming in at just over 50 tons per acre with 16.13% sugar, the harvest was a record for the family. Bolinger is a fourth-generation farmer.
“My grandpa and my great grandpa grew beets years and years ago,” he said. “The last time we had beets here on the homeplace was in the 40s or 50s. Then my grandpa got pretty big into cattle feeding and got away from the beets and then we started growing again in 2016. Things have certainly changed since all those years ago, that’s for darn sure.”
“It has certainly changed since all those years ago, that’s for darn sure,” he said. “All that hand labor… it’s a different world for sure.”
It was even one of Bolinger’s beets that was bestowed upon the Brush Beetdigger’s Homecoming King this year.
Article: The Fence Post, October 31, 2025
