Michigan sugar beet farmers harvested 130,000 acres of crop in 1996, ranking Michigan fifth in the nation in sugar beet production. Montcalm County grows 1,500 acres of sugarbeets.

Michigan’s Saginaw Valley and Thumb area, along with the southeast corner of the state, produces more than 90 percent of the sugar beets grown east of the Mississippi River.

Not all sugar beets are processed into sugar, however. Beet pulp is used as cattle feed and molasses, a byproduct of processing, is used to make citric acid, vinegar, yeast and antibiotics.

For more information about Michigan sugar, contact:

Great Lakes Sugar Beet Growers Association
4800 Fashion Square Blvd., Suite 485
Saginaw, Michigan 48604
(517) 792-1531

Monitor Sugar Beet Growers, Inc.
849 Gilford Road, Route 1
Caro, Michigan 48723
(517) 673-3406