A farmer in Hillsboro owes almost $300,000 after bad weather and a harvest forced him to leave nearly all of his sugar beets in the ground.
You can see his crew shredding up more than 800 acres of frozen sugar beets.
The wet and cold season made them unable to harvest — so the year spent preparing the fields and planting the seeds went to waste.
Now, American Crystal Sugar is asking for $343 for every acre of sugar beets unharvested.
That’s roughly $280,000 for Jason Seigert of Hillsboro.
It’s the worst harvest he’s ever had, and it has him worrying about the future for young farmers.
“We got to figure out how to keep this youth here because the aging population of the farmers in North Dakota is getting older all the time. We don’t need htat. We need young people. So how do we keep them here?” said Jason Seigert, Sugar beet producer.
They’re getting the fields ready for next year — optimistic for a better growing season.
