“For the first time since 1976, there is no single unified pan-India policy for the sugar sector,” reported The Hindu newspaper last week. “All state governments are deciding sugarcane prices or policies at will, creating intra-state distortions in production, marketable values and exports. The nation stands divided by sugar.” Also last week, an Indian sugarcane ...…
(November 18, 2013) – On November 8, 2013, the Tampa Bay Times published an editorial titled “End the sweet deal for Big Sugar” which declared that “If there is a poster child for what is wrong with U.S. farm policy, it’s sugar.” The editorial concluded: “Until lawmakers stand up to Big Sugar, taxpayers will keep ...…
(November 12, 2013) – Opponents of the current U.S. sugar policy rarely get beyond their global free-market talking points long enough to consider the International Law of Unintended Consequences. Fueled primarily by large candy makers, opponents continue to demand an end to U.S. tariffs and import quotas on heavily subsidized and artificially cheap foreign sugar ...…
(November 4, 2013) - For Halloween last week, U.S. Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) sent Halloween cards to their colleagues on behalf of the U.S. candy industry in their ongoing effort to undermine U.S. sugar farmers by propping up foreign competitors. Talking about the U.S. tariff and quota program that protects the ...…
This week a senator called on the Senate to investigate a proposed new tax policy which “stakeholders fear would kill the sugar industry.” The senator filed a Senate Resolution directing the Senate Ways and Means Committee to “conduct an inquiry” on the reform proposal that redefines raw sugar and removes its tax exemptions. “Groups from ...…
OK, I realize it’s the Wall Street Journal and not the Main Street Journal. And that the paper’s focus is on Big Business not Family Farms. But the editorialized notion in a recent article that it’s “cheaper sugar” that’s sending “candy makers abroad” is a chocolate-covered absurdity. When Ronald Reagan was elected president the typical ...…
Opponents of the present U.S. sugar policy – which consists of import quotas and relatively mild tariffs, rather than direct farmer subsidies – are viewing the reality of the world market with blinders on. Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out last week, Japan’s import tariffs on rice are as high as 778%, and ...…
Cyclone Phailin smashed into India over the weekend with winds in excess of 120 miles an hour, destroying millions of dollars worth of crops, including sugar cane. The Wall Street Journal reports that “crop damage in the region was extensive.” “Rural roads – where most people sustain themselves by growing rice, bananas, coconuts and other ...…
(Chuck Muth | October 8, 2013) – According to figures compiled by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the wholesale cost of sugar refined in the United States in October of 1980 – the month before Ronald Reagan was elected president – was 51.77 cents per pound. That same pound of refined U.S. sugar ...…
(Chuck Muth) – Republicans in the House of Representatives and Democrats in the Senate didn’t agree on much during the farm bill debate, but both bodies clearly sided with the powerful U.S. sugar lobby when it came to the continuation of U.S. sugar tariffs and quotas. That means sugar probably won’t be coming up in ...…