Congress Daily: Peterson- No Fixes Needed To Sugar Program
May 04, 2010
In The News
FRESNO, Calif. — The U.S. sugar program will not need changes in the 2012 farm bill, except for a provision to help growers enter the renewable-fuels market, according to House Agriculture Chairman
Collin Peterson
.The sugar program "is working exactly as it is supposed to," he told Minnesota
CongressDaily
Monday after the third in his series of field hearings on the 2012 farm bill. "I don’t foresee big changes in sugar." Peterson’s At a hearing Saturday in Nampa , Idaho
"American sugar farmers remain grateful to the Congress for crafting a sugar policy that is balancing supply and demand, ensures consumers of dependable, high-quality supplies, and is improving market prospects for sugar producers," said Galen Lee, an Idaho grower speaking for the Snake River Sugar Company, a cooperative owned by 1,100 sugar growers that produces 13 percent of U.S. sugar. "We strongly urge the continuation of this successful, no-cost policy in the next farm bill."
Most U.S.
Candy companies and other industrial sugar users have complained bitterly that the Obama administration has restricted imports as much as possible.
John Diener, a California sugar-beet producer, testified in Fresno that a local sugar refinery had closed in 2008 and that the sugar farmers in the area have banded together to form a co-operative to produce low-carbon ethanol for cars and farm vehicles from sugar. Diener asked for money in the next farm bill to help start the project, and Peterson said afterward he was sympathetic to the idea.
Peterson said he has experienced few surprises in his field hearings so far, except that dairy interests are less unified than he expected. Jamie Bledsoe, a California
House Agriculture ranking member California
Frank Lucas
said Californians must realize that farmers in other parts of the country object to their state’s set-asides in the environmental quality incentives program, which is used for cleanups, because the state of Rep.
Dennis Cardoza
, D-Calif., countered that the Clean Water, Clean Air and Endangered Species acts set the basic environmental standards, adding that his state’s environmental problems are a national issue because it produces so much of the nation’s food.Californian farmers at the hearing also addressed the average crop revenue election program and the permanent disaster program, arguing that both are not working well. Peterson said he agreed those programs are too complicated at present but they still hold potential.
Peterson has scheduled further hearings this month in Alabama , Georgia , South Dakota and Texas
# # #