[LonePalm]

Actually domestic sugar beet production is 3-4 times sugar cane production as of FY'04. (Source: USDA)

'La bonne cuisine est la base du véritable bonheur.' - Auguste Escoffier
(Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[LexBaird]

Could be so now, but all the beet sugar processing plants in Idaho and Utah went belly up in the 70's. The only beet farmers there now grow them for cattle feed. I do know that beets produce less sugar per ton than cane.

See this article. In part: "To ensure high sugar prices, the Department of Agriculture constrains the supply by designating the overall domestic sugar consumption in advance. FY 2005's allotment is about 8.1 million tons. The 2002 Farm Bill set the foreign import ceiling at 1.53 million tons, but the administration only allowed 1.23 million tons for FY 2005, which is the amount determined by the WTO Uruguay Round Agreement. As Kudlow suggested, CAFTA's 109,000 tons increase is nothing compared to the 300,000 tons the administration could add. The Farm Bill also mandated a fixed proportion between the cane sugar and beet sugar production of 54.35 percent to 45.65 percent, respectively."

In short, domestic beet production is being propped up by subsidies and import controls on foreign cane sugar.