Agri-Pulse: Sugar tensions heat up ahead of farm bill

U.S. sugar farmers want to keep restricting the inflow of foreign supplies just as much as much as sweetener users – think candy and food companies – want to increase imports and push down prices. As a result, friction between the two sides is heating up as Congress prepares to write the next five-year farm bill. Perhaps the first shot in the conflict was an original proposal from the Sweetener Users Association (SUA) that’s been adopted as legislation circulating in the House and Senate. The farmers and refiners represented by the American Sugar Alliance (ASA) say that bill, the Sugar Policy Modernization Act, would effectively gut the safety net that makes it possible for the U.S. to have a domestic sugar crop.The SUA – which represents companies that make products like M&Ms and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – says the bill simply forces the U.S. sugar market to be more market-driven and less insulated by government policy.