House misses sugar in Farm Bill hearings

   The U.S. House Agriculture Committee’s general farm commodities and risk management subcommittee finished two days of Farm Bill hearings Thursday with no mention of the U.S. sugar trade program.
   The National Confectioners Association (NCA) and its members said they’re concerned the House will follow the Senate Agriculture Committee and pass the bill out of committee leaving the current U.S. sugar program in place. The program greatly favors U.S. sugar growers while costing consumers $3.5 billion a year, the association said.
   “We are disappointed that the (House) Agriculture Committee denied our request to testify at either of the commodity hearings,” said Larry Graham, NCA president and chairman of the Coalition for Sugar Reform . “If Congress is truly concerned about jobs, why would it deny an open debate on a sugar program that is negatively impacting the interests of the 600,000 Americans employed by the sugar-using sector?”
   NCA’s testimony summarizes the adverse effects of the U.S. sugar program, including the severe restraints on domestic production imports and the lack of competition, noting the average price of refined sugar in neighboring Canada is significantly lower than in the United States. In addition, high domestic sugar prices provide a huge incentive to relocate U.S. food processing jobs overseas. The testimony noted the U.S. Commerce Department reported that 125,000 sugar-using industry jobs were lost between 1997 and 2010.
   “A federal sugar program designed exclusively for sugar growers and processors to the detriment of the rest of the U.S. economy has very real consequences, including sugar supply shortages, excessively high sugar prices, consumer costs, lost jobs, inhibition of new export opportunities and relocation of manufacturing facilities overseas,” Graham said in his testimony.