Farm Bill Conferees Fail U.S. Consumers and Manufacturers with Subsidy Increases to Big Sugar

‘Increase in Sugar Lobby’s Already-generous Subsidies Has Been Air-dropped into Conference Report’

Washington, D.C. (December 11, 2018) – The Sweetener Users Association (SUA) today issued the following statement in response to the news that lawmakers have raised the loan rates for cane sugar and beet sugar in the 2018 farm bill conference.

First, lawmakers miss an opportunity this year to make modest reforms to fix the failed U.S. sugar program.

Now, farm bill conferees have raised the loan rates on sugar and effectively imposed more costs on U.S. food and beverage manufacturers and American consumers.

And to make matters worse, they did it behind closed conference doors. The House of Representatives did not vote to raise sugar loan rates. Nor did the Senate. Yet now, an increase in the sugar lobby’s already-generous subsidies has been air-dropped into a conference report and will be handed to a Congress that did not approve it, without any possibility of amendment.

U.S. sugar policy will now benefit even more a small group of sugar processing corporations and cooperatives at the expense of everyone else in the country.

America’s food and beverage manufacturers and the more than 600,000 Americans they employ are looking forward to a new Congress and a new opportunity to get sugar policy right for the majority of America.