U.S. sugar growers and producers fight CAFTA

[arcos]

U.S. sugar growers and producers fight CAFTA

Sugar growers and processors are lining up against the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement because they say it will adversely impact their industry.

CAFTA, which still must be approved by the U.S. Congress, is a trade and investment agreement that includes higher sugar import quotas for the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The high CAFTA sugar quotas, coupled with extra imports from Mexico and any quota increases from other free trade agreements under negotiation, will endanger the long-standing U.S. sugar program, the industry contends. If sugar imports under the quota system surpass 1.523 million tons annually, Congress has ordered the program to be discontinued.

Under the program the United States imports 1.256 million tons of sugar each year from 41 countries at a price of around 20 cents a pound -- more than double the price for sugar on the world market. It is a boon for sugar producers in developing countries because they receive higher prices; U.S. sugar growers produce 8.5 million tons a year, also receiving about 20 cents per pound.

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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/special_packages/business_monday/11115445.htm

[arcos]

1. kick nt

[VelvetMonkeyWrench]

2. US sugar has been going down for a while

South Florida around the lower parts of lake Okeechobee is the biggest sugar growing area. From the air, you see nothing but square miles of cane fields stretching from coast to coast and down to everglades. I'm very familiar with the area.

Clewiston is the corporate haedquarters for U.S. Sugar and there's a number of plants in the surrounding areas that employ the bulk of ag workers.

Times are desperate right now in sugar country. The town of South Bay - right at the bottom of lake Okeechobee, is essentially insolvent and risking being taken over by the state because it can't pay even its garbage collection bills. Pahokee a bit to the north on the east side of the lake is a desperately poor area that can't stand to lose a single job let alone dozens or hundreds, and the schools in Pahokee are already substandard compared to others in FL (which is quite a statement since FL schools generally suck on a national scale)

This is a Hobson's choice scenario I suspect. If we pull the plug on proping up the sugar growers, then some towns that are hanging by a thread collapse completely.

[saigon68]

3. They can then work as "Chicken Pluckers" at $5.15 an hour (no benefits)

Or at Walmart cleaning the toilets.

[VelvetMonkeyWrench]

4. There is no WalMart...

...in South Bay, Pahokee, or Belle Glade. This is ag country, not chicken country. There is one in Clewiston though. Probably got to go almost as far north as Sebring to find the next one.

It may just be that the cane growers need a different better paying crop -- DEA is always finding "supplemental" crops growing out along side the cane :P They use a thermal imaging system to spot it. The dope has a different heat signature from the air.

[saigon68]

5. I stand Corrected

I was trying to be sarcastic. Sorry :-(