Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1225206
Typically, nothing this big gets done this quickly in Washington, but it did. This is not easy work, and it takes lots of people to make it run properly. they put into getting this done. Finally, numerous beet sugar Washington representatives and legal counsel helped at every opportunity to inform members of Congress, the USDA and the media of the serious problems our industry was having and assisted in navigating all the key stakeholders and decision-makers to a timely conclusion. Typically, nothing this big gets done this quickly in Washington, but it did. Thank all of you and your grower leaders for their hard work and constant support to achieve success. Now, let's get a crop in the ground and have a record harvest of high-quality beets, stored and processed well in 2020-21 to continue to heal growers' economic wounds. We are pleased that RMA officially announced an "additional" 2020 price election for sugarbeets at 14.2 cents per pound of raw sugar, a substantial improvement over the 12.3 cents-per- pound "established" price announced last November. This increase was the direct result of our work at the ASGA (led primarily by Scott Herndon), assisted by legal counsel and several of the sugarbeet processing companies, providing data to RMA to demonstrate that the 12.3-cent "established" price simply failed to reflect actual market conditions. We will continue to work with RMA this year to make sure these issues do not occur again in 2021. Our 2020 congressional fly-in covered over 300 offices by beet and cane teams that reinforced the need for U.S. sugar policy and to oppose any efforts to modify it. This is a huge logistical effort, and we salute our ASGA director of government relations, Zack Clark, for making this a huge success. It takes the success of schedulers to make the appointments for numerous teams, to train grower leaders to have a command of and effectively articulate multiple issues, and for grower spokespersons to work along with cane representatives as a team in communicating the benefits of a strong domestic industry. This is not easy work, and it takes lots of people to make it run properly. They have a tremendous reputation for doing a fantastic job and are highly respected in the offices they visit. We thank them and salute them for their dedicated service to the future of our industry. n www.SugarProducer.com 7