FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                             CONTACT:   Phillip Hayes

Wednesday, May 5, 2010                                                                         202-507-8303

U.S. Sugar Policy Working Well, Wyo. Farmer Tells Ag Committee

CHEYENNE, Wyo.—Members of the House Agriculture Committee have heard a lot about sugar policy this week during its Farm Bill field hearings, and the message they’ve received from farmers has been very positive.

John Snyder, a Wyoming sugarbeet grower and president of the Washakie Beet Growers, commended lawmakers for the way they structured the current sugar policy and asked them to continue the no-cost program during a hearing held yesterday in Cheyenne.

“Sugar is the only major commodity program that operates at no cost to taxpayers, and government projections through 2020 say it will remain no cost over all these years,” he testified.

But Snyder cautioned that sugar policy could come with a price tag if it is weakened in the 2012 Farm Bill or if unneeded foreign sugar floods the United States.

Either scenario, Snyder contends, would harm taxpayers and do considerable economic damage to the local economy.

“For over a century, the beet sugar industry has played an important economic role in the mountain region of Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, and Montana,” Snyder explained to Committee members.  Area sugar growers and grower-owned companies “produce 13% of the U.S. sugarbeet production on 135,800 acres and support 1,500 full-time factory and seasonal jobs.”

Lawmakers heard a similar story on Saturday during a hearing in Nampa, Idaho.

At that hearing, Galen Lee, the president of the Nyssa-Nampa Beet Growers Association, said, “Congress, in its wisdom, designed a sugar policy that is working to the considerable benefit to consumers and at zero cost to taxpayers and is giving the remaining American sugar farmers a chance to survive.  And, it fully complies with the rules of the World Trade Organization.”

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