By Jerry Hagstrom,
DTN Political Correspondent
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (DTN) -- Key congressional and USDA leaders on Monday committed themselves to the future of the U.S. sugar program as industry officials and analysts talked about the struggles that beet producers and cane refiners are experiencing in the midst of imports from Mexico and the controversy surrounding genetically modified foods.
Luther Markwart, the executive vice president of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association who is the chairman of the American Sugar Alliance, opened the 33rd annual International Sweetener Symposium in Coeur d'Alene by noting that "beet and cane are struggling right now."
The last Hawaiian sugar plantation will cease operation this year after 145 years, and the American countryside is "littered with facilities that have shut down over the years," Markwart said.
The industry, he said, needs "a policy to respond to predatory trade practices."
But then he introduced videos in which Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway, R-Texas, and Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said they are determined to help the industry continue.
Conaway noted that he had been in Minnesota and Montana last week learning about sugar beet production.
"Sugar policy for me is easy to defend," Conaway said. "It works for the American taxpayer and for the American sugar producers."
The program also protects the growers "from predatory dumping," he added.
Stabenow, who was in eastern Iowa on Monday campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, also said she is "lucky enough to come from Michigan" where the influence of sugar can be seen in every corner of the state, not just in growing sugar but in the processing of food.
She said she would defend growing sugar because "We don't have an economy or a middle class for that matter if we don't make things or grow things."
Stabenow said she is determined that the U.S. government find a "path forward with the Mexican government" on the conflict over what kind of sugar should be imported from Mexico. She also said that attacks on the farm bill should not be allowed and that sugar should be represented in the larger trade agenda.
"We have stuck together in all these debates," Stabenow said. "It has been rough and tumble ... but we have been able to do it."
Conaway and Stabenow both thanked the sugar growers for their support when Congress passed the biotech labeling bill that President Barack Obama signed on Friday.
Conaway said the sugar growers had "been there every time" while the bill developed.
Stabenow also said she was "glad she could negotiate an agreement" with Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan.
"I am grateful we are able to stick together," Stabenow said.
In a luncheon speech, Alexis Taylor, the Agriculture deputy undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services -- and has assumed the duties of the undersecretary since Michael Scuse became acting deputy secretary -- said that, as the next farm bill is developed, it is important to ask "Does USDA have the tools it needs to manage the sugar program?"
"I would suggest not waiting until the farm bill is in full swing to ask ourselves these important questions," Taylor added.
Taylor noted how complicated it has become to manage the sugar program.
"The sugar program has multiple interests," Taylor noted, referring to the growers, the refiners, the sweetener users and U.S. relationships with other countries.
"USDA has an obligation to manage from different perspectives," she added.
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico has the right to send unlimited amounts of sugar to the United States, but not to subsidize those exports or to dump sugar at low prices.
USDA is participating in an effort to make changes to the suspension agreements that were put in place to avoid injury from sugar that Mexico was subsidizing and dumping.
But under the agreements, Mexico is sending a form of semi-refined sugar rather than the raw sugar that cane refiners need. The semi-refined sugar is also causing stocks of beet sugar to rise.
"While we want the agreement to stay in place," Taylor said, the Commerce Department "makes sure the agreements address injury and do not cause injury."
"Mexico is a vital part to the balancing act in managing the U.S. sugar program," Taylor said.
She also noted that USDA is monitoring cases that have been brought against sugar subsidies in other countries at the World Trade Organization.
"We were glad" the Trans Pacific Partnership was negotiated "in a way that would not interfere with the [sugar] program," she said.
USDA's "efforts can feel imperfect, but we are committed to finding the most balanced approach," Taylor concluded.
(CC/AG)
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