FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                             CONTACT:   Phillip Hayes

Friday, April 30, 2010                                                                                202-507-8303

Idaho Grower to Outline Sugar Priorities at Farm Bill Field Hearing

NAMPA, Idaho—The House Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing in the heart of sugarbeet country tomorrow, and local sugar growers are expected to applaud members for the way they’ve designed the farm safety net.

“Congress, in its wisdom, designed a sugar policy that is working to the considerable benefit of consumers and at zero cost to taxpayers, and is giving the remaining American sugar farmers a chance to survive,” said Galen Lee, a local beet farmer from New Plymouth and president of the Nyssa-Nampa Beet Growers Association, who is scheduled to testify.

“And, it fully complies with the rules of the World Trade Organization,” he added.

Lee, speaking on behalf of the 1,100 grower-owners of the Snake River Sugar Company, will urge Congress to continue this successful sugar policy as it designs the next Farm Bill.

“With some prospect of continued market stability, producers should be able to reinvest in their operations, further reduce their costs of production, and survive,” he said. “We strongly urge the continuation of this successful, no-cost policy in the next Farm Bill.”

Weakening this policy in the next Farm Bill could hold dire consequences, both locally and nationally, according to Lee.

Years of escalating costs and depressed prices from which growers have only started to recover have caused constriction within the industry.  If low profit margins reemerge and unneeded foreign sugar cascades onto the U.S. market, Idaho’s sugar industry, which supports 7,000 jobs and pumps $1 billion into local economies, could feel the sting.

Pressure on sugar producers in Idaho and elsewhere could have a ripple effect across the country, Lee contends, because consumers depend on sugar as a key sweetener, preservative, and bulking agent in America’s food supply.

The House Agriculture Committee will host a similar field hearing in Cheyenne, Wyo. on May 4.

The American Sugar Alliance is the national coalition of growers, processors, and refiners of sugarbeets and sugarcane, accounting for 146,000 American jobs and $10 billion in economic activity in 18 states.

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For more information about U.S. sugar policy, visit www.sugaralliance.org