High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.), a member of the Chenopodiaceae family, is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production. The sugar comes from the bulb of the beetroot plant, chard and fodder beet, all descended by cultivation from the sea beet. The European Union, the United States, and Russia are the world's three largest sugar beet producers, although only the European Union and Ukraine are significant exporters of sugar from beets. The U.S. harvested 1,004,600 acres of sugarbeets in 2008 alone.