Today, Michigan Sugar pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy each year. Sugar is a seasonal product with busy periods during summer and the fall baking seasons. But retailers and food-makers don’t take delivery of an entire season’s worth of sugar all at once. They expect the sugar producing industry to warehouse the product until its needed.
Sugar doesn’t come from the grocery store. It comes from American farms and American factories that support American jobs. Watch the sugar policy debate in four short videos.
“Like my father and the three generations before him, I plan to work on our farm and continue contributing to our domestic food supply for American families.”
Clewiston is proudly called America’s sweetest town. But for the families that grow sugarcane in Florida, life hasn’t been too sweet lately. They’ve felt the impact of Mexico illegally dumping highly subsidized sugar on the U.S. market, sending prices into a tailspin.
Nearly 60 banks and Certified Public Accountants sent Congress a letter opposing the Sugar Farmer Bankruptcy Bill.
Sugar prices tanked when Mexico broke U.S. trade law and flooded the market with subsidized imports years ago. While that problem has been addressed, the aftereffects are still lingering.
America has had a sugar policy in some form since the country was founded. And Louisiana was the first place where the crop was planted – tracing its roots back more than 200 years.
Sugar is widely considered the world’s most volatile commodity market because of widespread subsidization. The Rutherfords, like other American sugarbeet and sugarcane farmers, rely on a U.S. sugar policy comprised of import limits and producer loans to cope.
Western Nebraska is a special place made up of special people. Our little community humbly and proudly produces a reliable supply of premium sugar for grocery shoppers and food manufactures across the country. We want to be treated fairly, but unfortunately we are not being treated fairly right now. It’s been four years since Mexico broke U.S. trade law and wrecked our market with a flood of subsidized sugar.
We grow sugar, where prices are lower today than they were in 1980. Unfortunately for beet and cane farmers, the cost of fuel, seed, fertilizer, and other inputs has risen dramatically during that time, creating an economic squeeze.