FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                             CONTACT:   Phillip Hayes

Thursday, June 9, 2011                                                                                   202-507-8303

USDA Squashes Sugar Shortage Scare Tactics…Again

WASHINGTON—For the second time in as many months, two Congressmen today sent out a false warning of sugar shortages to their Capitol Hill colleagues just as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released official government estimates for projected sugar surpluses.

Congressmen Joe Pitts (R-PA) and Danny Davis (D-IL) urged legislators to sign a letter to the USDA, which reads: “Current sugar supplies are excessively tight, and the results are business disruption [sic], reduced employment opportunities and higher consumer grocery prices…The inadequacy of supply has been the result or [sic] market forces, new restrictions in the 2008 farm bill, and an excessively cautious approach to program administration on USDA’s part.”

Meanwhile, the USDA unveiled its monthly production and consumption estimates for the year, which indicate that the United States will have more than 1.6 million tons of surplus sugar on the market at the end of FY 2011.

To put that figure into perspective, it is more than enough leftover product to provide every man, woman, and child in the country with 10 pounds of sugar on top of what they’re already consuming.  In addition, the USDA today raised its sugar surplus forecasts for next year.

Pitts and Davis made a similar misstep just before last month’s USDA estimates, citing “sugar shortages” in a letter to lawmakers asking that they co-sponsor a Pitts-Davis bill to eliminate no-cost U.S. sugar policy.

Jack Pettus, chairman of the American Sugar Alliance, says sugar companies have plenty of product to sell and believes these recurring gaffes show just how out of touch the bill’s authors are with the realities of the sugar market.

“Using disingenuous information to attract support for an unpopular bill is reckless,” Pettus said, “especially when that bill would threaten 146,000 U.S. sugar jobs and leave the nation dependent on foreign countries to provide an essential ingredient to our food supply.”

Pettus noted that the Pitts-Davis bill is having trouble attracting interest in Congress because sugar policy has operated at no cost to taxpayers since 2002 and is projected by the USDA to remain no cost through at least 2021.

“Lawmakers have bigger issues to deal with right now than helping a few candy companies further boost their bottom lines on the backs of farm families,” he said.  “As we deal with mounting budget pressures, America needs more no-cost policies, not fewer.”

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