The last sugar beet factory is to leave California, costing hundreds of jobs and devastating the local industry despite the fact that growing conditions in the Imperial Valley are ideal for the crop.
Local PBS affiliate KPBS reported last week:
[T]his spring, the owner of the Spreckels factory, Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative, announced plans to shut down the plant and consolidate their sugar operations to the Midwest.
Due to strict federal limits on who can make beet sugar in the United States, the Imperial Valley will be unable to process any more beets once the plant closes — effectively ending sugarbeet farming in the region.
The news has rocked the Imperial Valley, where jobs are hard to come by and farming is the second-largest employer. County officials say the plant’s closure means the loss of a $243 million industry and more than 700 local jobs.
The news marks just the latest example of a major factory or industry leaving the state. Playboy announced last week that it was relocating from Los Angeles, where it was an iconic brand, to Miami Beach, Florida.
In this case, state mismanagement and overzealous unions have combined with obscure federal policies and industrial collusion to end operations of the last sugar beet factory in California, barring future changes.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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