Meet the Minnesota Farmer Pushing Back on Anti-Sugar Rhetoric and Advocating for a Fair Farm Bill

Sugar beet farmer Tim Deal wants consumers and legislators to know sugar is an all-natural product, denouncing statements from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., that, “sugar is poison.” Earlier this year, he testified before the Senate Ag Committee on the importance of including provisions for the sugar industry in a new Farm Bill.

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Meet Tim Deal

When the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative was formed in Wahpeton, ND, in 1972, farmers in the Red River Valley started growing sugar beets for the coop’s new processing plant. Tim Deal’s family farm, right across the state line near Breckenridge, MN, joined them. Deal’s father and grandfather had feeder and dairy cattle, and later hogs, but transitioned the operation to focus on helping fill demand at the plant.

Today, Deal is the fourth generation to run the family farm, growing sugar beets, soybeans (including specialty beans), corn, and spring wheat. He serves as chairman of the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative Board and is a member of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association.

Earlier this year, Deal testified before the Senate Ag Committee about the importance of including provisions for the sugar industry — which includes both sugar beet and sugar cane growers — in a new Farm Bill.

At an April press conference, Kennedy said, “Sugar is poison and Americans need to know that it is poisoning us.” That same day, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins was visiting an American Crystal Sugar facility in North Dakota, owned by some 3,000 sugar beet growers in that state and Minnesota.

In response to Kennedy’s remarks, Deal said, “Sugar beet and sugar cane farmers always have and always will support food and ag policies grounded in strong science. It’s an unwelcome shock for any farmer to hear our crops compared to poison and illegal drugs. I don’t know of anyone who would find that to be a fair or evidence-based statement. So, I think there is concern about how Secretary Kennedy will act on that view going forward and how rhetoric on health and agriculture will impact growers in the real world during an already difficult and challenging time.”

Episode Highlights

• Fourth-generation Minnesota farmer Tim Deal grows sugar beets, soybeans, corn, and wheat, and serves as chairman of the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative Board and a member of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association.
• Sugar beets became a focus crop for his family farm in 1972 when a processing plant opened nearby in Wahpeton, ND.
• Sugar beets are planted in early April and harvested starting in August for pre-pile, with the main harvest kicking off in October when temperatures drop.
• The crop is highly efficient: sugar beets are 16–20% sugar, and byproducts like beet pulp are used in livestock and horse feed.
• Deal recently testified before the Senate Ag Committee to advocate for the sugar industry’s inclusion in the new Farm Bill, highlighting sugar’s economic and rural importance.
• He stressed that sugar beet and cane growers are united, despite regional and crop differences, working together through the American Sugar Alliance.
• With only 19 sugar factories left nationwide, the industry has consolidated but increased efficiency — producing 20% more sugar on 4% fewer acres.
• Sugar production supports 155,000 jobs and has a $23+ billion impact on the U.S. economy — making policy support for it critical to rural communities.
• The U.S. is a net importer of sugar.

Links and Resources

Transcript

Lisa Foust Prater: Welcome to the 15 Minutes with a Farmer Podcast from Successful Farming, I’m your host, Lisa Foust Prater.

My guest today is Tim Deal, a Minnesota sugar beet grower who joined me for a conversation at Commodity Classic. Earlier this year, Tim testified before the Senate Committee on Agriculture on behalf of the American Sugar Beet Growers Association, educating senators about the challenges facing fellow farmers.

In each episode, I have a quick 15 minute conversation with a farmer to hear their story and share their experience, expertise, and life lessons. 

Tim, thank you so much for joining me today. Tell us about your background in agriculture and your farm.

Tim Deal: Well, I grew up on a family farm about 15 miles out of the main town that I went to high school in, Breckenridge, Minnesota. And sugar beets became part of our farm as people started phasing out of livestock and milk cows and feeder cattle. And then we actually went to and had a fair to finish hog operation, my dad did.

And that all kind of went by the wayside when sugar beets came to our area in about 1972. They started promoting building a sugar beet factory at our town in Wahpeton, North Dakota. 

Lisa Foust Prater: Perfect. So I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know anything about sugar beets other than that I know they grow a lot of them in Minnesota and the Dakotas. So tell us about that crop and like what your growth year looks like.

Tim Deal: Well, sugar beets are a root crop, obviously. And there’s a very small seed. Back when we first started, we had to get our seed bed just perfect because it’s only planted about an inch deep. 

Sugar beets are usually planted around the first two weeks of April. We get them in the ground. We usually have to put a pre-emergent herbicide on them. The ground is usually already fertilized the fall before. And once they’re in the ground and they get established, they start out very small, but once they get bigger, they’re very tough plant.

And so we have to spray our herbicides on them all summer. We have some disease issues that we have to be on top of with fungicide sprays. And then if the crop season is looking good, our co-op, our factory will start harvest in middle to late August if the crop looks like it’s going to be big enough, and we’ll start what we call pre-pile. And that is just we feed the factory enough to keep it going and get it started up because they don’t store. And then come around and we’ll keep going like that until about October 1 or so when it gets cold enough and the root temperatures get to 50 degrees and then we can stack them in piles out in the country and up at the factory for slicing the rest of the winter and partly into spring the next year.

Lisa Foust Prater: So that’s why you see so many sugar beet growers in the north: Minnesota, Dakotas, you need some cold weather. Telll me about when you what happens with the sugar beets like what are the crop that you grow like what is it what is the end result 

Tim Deal: Well sugar beets are 16 to 20 percent sugar and about 75 percent water, and everything else that’s taken out of that beet, you don’t really make sugar. You have the sugar in the beet, but you take all the impurities out. So we get refined white sugar is the end product for us. And then we have co-products that go into the feed industry. 

Lisa Foust Prater: Yeah. Right. I have heard of livestock producers using the sugar beets as part of their feed. 

Tim Deal: Yep, the beet pulp. And some of that pulp is hauled out as shreds. Some of it’s dried, or most of it’s dried, but then some of it’s pelletized as well. 

And like right now too, the beet pulp has gotten into the horse market, horse feed market, and it’s really been a hit. It is a precise formula. They like to feed those horses and this product called UnBEETable Feeds is marketed to the horses and it’s all pre-mixed and pre-made ready to go. 

Lisa Foust Prater: That’s great and what a nice sort of added value or it gives you another, you growers another outlet for your product.

Tim Deal: Yes, and it gets us into the retail market finally. We’re always in the boat. 

Lisa Foust Prater: Tell me all who is all working on your family farm right now.

Tim Deal: Well, I took over the farm from my dad and he is 87 and he’s still managing, giving me his thoughts and opinions on things. We’ve got a succession plan for myself to get out and my son Josh is taking over the operation at this point. So he’d be the fifth generation.

Lisa Foust Prater: That’s so great. So I would imagine that you know growing up on the farm he had you know he had the benefit of your father’s experience and your experience and you know for you was it was it like that too? Was your grandfather around? 

Tim Deal: Yeah, yeah, my grandpa was always around and very just always showed up for whatever to check on things and just like my dad’s doing, giving me his opinion. 

Lisa Foust Prater: Yeah. And you know, it’s always interesting to me to think about those multi-generation farms and just the kind of advice that you can get from a grandpa or a dad who’s lived through, you know, lived through tough times or different times and just get their take on like how how the farm has changed or give you advice. So tell me about some advice maybe that you got from your grandpa or your dad about farming.

Tim Deal: My grandpa was an advocate very much of keeping the farm in the family and keeping it going. And actually, my first quarter was financed by him. And that was when land was really cheap, but it was expensive at the time. And so that showed his definite interest in supporting the next generation. And if you don’t have that support from the prior generation, it’s pretty tough to keep it going. My dad has helped me as well. And I will help my son, Josh and his wife, Beth. 

Lisa Foust Prater: Yeah, that’s great. So I know that it can be tricky sometimes, you know, when you’re working with family, especially when, like you said, your dad is still his input. I mean that’s a very common thing for farmers: they never really retire. They may hand over the official reins but they’re always kind of still you know still the boss or still the one who you look to for answers. 

Tim Deal: Yeah you do you never you never stop doing that. 

Lisa Foust Prater: No and it’s so great that you have him to you know to look for those pearls of wisdom. You can’t buy that kind of thing. 

Tim Deal: Yep, that’s right. And at the same time, you gotta get out of the way. And so I’ve been pretty active in the sugar beet industry. I’m on the MinnDak Farmers’ Cooperative Board. I’m chairman of that Board. Then about eight years ago or so, I got involved on the American Sugar Beet Growers Association Board, so I’ve got a lot of things to keep me busy. Maybe keep myself out of his hair for a while. 

Lisa Foust Prater: Well that’s very generous of you. That doesn’t always happen. So tell me about that, you know being on those boards and I would imagine you’re doing some traveling and talking about sugar beets to the rest of the world. So tell me about that. 

Tim Deal: Yeah that’s been interesting. This last month has been pretty wild. We had our American Sugar Beet Growers Association annual meeting out in San Diego. And prior to that, I was in San Antonio at the Farm Bureau convention. But while I was out there, I got the call that, “You know what, you gotta go testify in front of the Senate Ag Committee.”

And I go, “Wow, OK,” so yeah, and “You got to catch this flight and get out there and be ready to testify at 1030 Wednesday morning.” that was quite an experience. Yeah.

Lisa Foust Prater: Yeah, so what was what was happening like what was on their agenda that you needed to to testify? 

Tim Deal: Well, it was about the farm bill and moving it forward and and the Senate Ag Committee, you they they take so there was like nine of us in there from different commodities and Zippy Duvall and Rob LaRue are there and they testified. The senators just need to hear a testimony. They want to hear what’s going on. So they have accurate information going into the farm bill discussions and then they want to hear from the farmers. 

Lisa Foust Prater: You know, we talk a lot about how it’s important for the public and consumers in general to meet farmers and put a face to their food and the fiber and to also see that they’re regular human people who care about their land and their animals and their soil. But really, doing that same thing with you know, your senators is so important too because I mean they’re the ones who are, you know, making legislation that affects all of us.

Tim Deal: Normally this time of year, last week and this week, we have about 40 or 50 farmers and Board members that go out to Washington, D.C., and we’ll do about 150 to 170 office calls a week and meet with the staffers or the member. And we send our message out. this week, know, normally I’m there. But this week, you know, Commodity Classic, we got a booth set up for the American Sugar Alliance here and that is both cane and sugar beet.

Lisa Foust Prater: That’s interesting that that association represents both of you. How does that work with like the, I mean, it’s a totally different parts of the country, you know, different crop, you know, how is that working with the sugar cane folks? 

Tim Deal: Well, you know, we’ve got a lot of friends, I’ve got a lot of friends that are sugar cane growers and you know, I’ve met them in DC when we all work together for the common good of sugar. And the cane people, they’re all down south, you got to have a warm climate for that. Sugar beets, we’re up north, little cooler. But we’re the exact same product. You can’t tell the difference between them no matter what.

Lisa Foust Prater: So sugar, you know, like many different foods, seed oils for example, foods and get sort of the bad rap. And how do you sort of combat misperceptions about sugar and promote it in a positive way? 

Tim Deal: Well it seems like we have to educate and defend our product as all natural. And it’s a good regenerative crop. I mean, we use everything. And so, you know, we have an association in Washington specifically for that to fight the, you know, to bring out the truth and the labeling when we’re trying to get these front of box labels that are not accurate and we try to keep things fair and keep consumers educated on it. 

In sugar beets you know, they’re they’re a major minor crop so to speak. We’re about a million acres 1.1 million acres corn being 90, but we all grow all the other crops. I mean they’re rotational crops, so the soybeans and all the other crops are very important to us. So when we’re advocating for sugar beets, we’re advocating for farming. You know, we’re actually a net importer of sugar.

Lisa Foust Prater: So that’s different experience than the other commodity. And how do you change that? 

Tim Deal: You know, well, we’re trying yeah, we’re trying, you know, we used to have a lot more sugar factories around the country and you know now we’re down to 19. We’re probably I think we probably lost 40 in the last 40 48 in the last 40 years You know, so things are changing. Yeah, so consolidating. Yeah, but you know, the good thing is is that we’re raising 20 % more sugar on 4 % less acres. 

And what’s important about these sugar beet factories and these sugar cane mills and refiners is that a lot of them are located in rural areas. They’re cornerstone employers in the small towns. So they’re very important to our rural economy. 

Lisa Foust Prater: Absolutely. 

Tim Deal: We have about 155,000 people involved in sugar production. We have about over a $23 billion impact on the economy in the United States. 

Lisa Foust Prater: That’s amazing. Well, I’m so glad that you are representing those growers and bringing it to DC sharing your story. That’s so important. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to join me today and and share your story and I just look forward to seeing what’s next for you and for sugar beets. 

Tim Deal: Well, it sounds great and thank you for your time. Appreciate it. 

Lisa Foust Prater: Thank you for listening. Please subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Open the latest issue of Successful Farming and visit us online at agriculture.com for more interesting features and news for your farm and Join me next week for another episode of 15 Minutes With a Farmer.