Sugar State

During the first half of the twentieth century, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists played a significant role in the development of the beet sugar industry in Colorado and throughout the West. Organized around a mandate to increase the size, scope, and efficiency of the beet sugar industry, scientists developed research agendas that mapped onto the needs of industry. To achieve relevance, they responded to requests from Colorado beet sugar companies to solve cultivation quandaries. As the scope of USDA research grew alongside expanding budgets, state-sponsored researchers collaborated with beet sugar refiners, manufacturers of agricultural chemicals and machinery, and researchers at land grant colleges. However, despite growing influence throughout the period under analysis, state power in the sugar beet fields was characterized more by decentralization and diffusion than centralized strength. State-sponsored scientists within both the USDA and Colorado Agricultural College, as well as researchers within the beet sugar industry frequently moved in and out of one another’s employ, shared research space, and conducted joint projects. However, regardless of research project, the Western beet sugar industry supplied the agenda for state-supported science to follow. By examining the role of state-sponsored science in the beet sugar industry of Colorado and the West, this article shows that federal power in the West rose to the degree that it was willing to supply the research needs of industry.

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