I only have one small disagreement with my representative (who does a really good job in so many ways).

Dennis Olson of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has studied sugar commodity policy for many years. He concludes that the current US program, while not perfect, is far better than the programs for other commodities, particularly corn.

A short paper he did two years ago in the context of CAFTA summarizes these issues:

http://www.iatp.org/iatp/library/admin/uploadedfiles/CAFTA-NAFTA_Do_Not_Be_Fooled_Again.pdf

Sugar is subject to a trade quota system, not a direct subsidy or tariff approach. This provides for a relatively stable market. While US food producers and consumers pay somewhat more for sugar than the world price, this avoids the price and supply volatility and the downward pressure on farmgate prices, working conditions and soil and water quality and conservation that plague the industry elsewhere. (The issues with Florida and Louisiana sugar cane and the environment are more complex, and in significant contrast to sugarbeet growing areas.)

The US sugar industry is actually two separate industries: sugar cane primarily grown in Florida and Louisiana, and sugarbeets grown in the northern tier of states, especially the Red River Valley in Minnesota and North Dakota, where it is a major industry and supports a vast network of family farms and processing coops.

I would note that Oregon itself has a small (and vulnerable) sugarbeet area over on the east side (going across into Idaho). It has been hurt by changes in the market as the quota system has somewhat been bypassed.

And Oregon is also supplier of 95% of the rootstock for sugarbeets in the entire country, from a small area in between Corvallis and Salem where this is a specialty.

Sugarbeets actually supply somewhat more than half of the total US market -- all of it and most sugar cane goes to food processing rather than to table sugar.

Certainly there are bad aspects to the sugar industry, especially sugar cane, which has engulfed the Everglades and has hundreds of years of legacy for brutality to workers. That has ebbed but their political influence has not.

All the same, the US sugar support-quota system, which is something of an anachronism, actually accomplishes worthwhile goals, one of the very few ag programs that actually succeeds.

I urge Rep. Blumenauer, my longtime friend and esteemed member of Congress, to reconsider your position on sugar. This supposedly archaic system actually has important lessons about how to turn American farm policy back to where it should be focused: on good quality and fair and affordable prices for consumers, on a workable product for farmers and processors, and trimming down the overblown role of the agribusiness intermediaries to something approximating their real value added rather than the pressure they can apply on the political system, most especially in the Farm Bill.

-- Fred

Posted at June 5, 2007 3:08 AM in response to A Food and Farm Bill of Rights

This is very cool, especially given that you have picked such a fine name for the new foundation :)

-- Fred Heutte, Sunlight Data Systems, Portland, OR
phred@sunlightdata.com
formerly phred@sunlight.portland.or.us circa 1991

Posted at July 26, 2006 4:13 AM in response to "Pop-Up Politician" Debuts from Sunlight Labs