`
`
	Home	Bookmark	Contact	About Us	Terms of Use	Privacy

Topic:

» World Sugar Price

» U.S. Sugar Policy Consumer Costs

» U.S. Sugar Producers = U.S. Jobs

» U.S. Sugar Producers Efficiency

» U.S. Sugar Policy Loan Rate

» U.S. Sugar Policy and Foreign Debt

» International Trade and Sugar Policy Costs

» Sugar Futures News

U.S. Sugar Policy and Foreign Debt

Issue: An erroneous claim is advanced by special interests that U.S. sugar policy is detrimental to the economic well-being of many developing countries, hampering their ability to retire their debt.

An erroneous claim is advanced that U.S. sugar policy is detrimental to the economic well-being of many developing countries, hampering their ability to retire their debt. This perception is promoted largely by special interests who believe they would benefit from a curtailment or elimination of U.S. sugar policy. The Sweetener Users Association, among others, has promoted this idea.

Ironically, the World Bank may have played a greater role in disrupting economies of some of the sugar-producing developing countries that has U.S. sugar policy. As revealed in one of its own reports, the World Bank noted that by lending money to sugar-producing foreign countries, estimates show incremental production of sugar will be increased 4 million tons per year. While this additional production capacity is not significant in relation to global sugar production of 113 million metric tons, it amounts to an important share of traded “world market” sugar, which averages only 28 million tons a year. If the World Bank had not intervened, production would be lower in the world and the less developed countries would be enjoying a higher return on the sugar production, and they would not have as much debt to repay.

The misconception that somehow U.S. sugar policy hurts developing countries and prevents them from repaying their debts is completely at odds with the facts. Examination of the facts show that U.S. sugar policy is strongly supported by these countries. Opponents of U.S. sugar policy maintain that the United States is wrecking these budding economies with its sugar program. The opposite is true. The quickest way to hurt these countries is to deny them access to the U.S. sugar market by eliminating U.S. sugar policy.

The Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) countries, the Philippines, and other developing countries that comprise the vast majority of U.S. sugar import quota-holders support U.S. sugar policy and firmly oppose and reduction in the support price.

These countries favor the U.S. import quota system because of the price premium it assures them over the depressed dump “world market.”

The “quota rent”, or value of this premium U.S. price over the price these exporters would have received on the “world market” has averaged $342 million per year from 1990 to 1995. Any move to cut U.S. sugar policy is a quick way to hurt these developing countries.

Another totally outlandish piece of misinformation has been promoted by opponents of the sugar program. That is, having been deprived of American markets for their product (which is untrue), sugar farmers in foreign countries turn to raising cocaine. Such a statement is not unlike saying that, when corn prices are depressed, farmers in Indiana move to New York City to rob banks.

Coca plants grow in cool mountainous areas, in small plots. Sugar cane, a tropical grass, grows in the valleys in large units hundreds of miles from the mountainous areas. Sugarcane because of the logistics of growing and harvesting, must be grown near a mill and moved by large machinery to be efficient. It is not grown by small farmers successfully anywhere in the world. This is just one more attempt by opponents to try to discredit U.S. sugar policy.

An analysis of the issues affecting the U.S. sweetener industry along with information addressing those issues, prepared by the American Sugar Alliance

Back

Top of Page

	Home	Terms of Use	Privacy	Contact	About Us	Partner Sites
`
Copyright © 2006 MyInfoSource.biz