Farm economies are in crisis nationwide. Sugar prices fell drastically as farmers of other crops switched to sugarcane and sugar beets. Ill-advised trade agreements allow over a million tons of foreign sugar into this country whether we need it or not. It is not surprising that segments of the industry filed for bankruptcy.

What is surprising is that anti-sugar groups are using this to attempt to change U.S. sugar policy, claiming big sugar users pay too much for sugar. Prices paid to sugar farmers dropped more than 30% last year. The big candy companies and multi-national food processors are the ones pocketing the profits.

Consumers have not seen a penny of the two-year drop in sugar prices passed along in lower prices for retail sugar or sugar-containing products--proving that lower sugar prices do not result in lower food prices. Yet, the big candy makers fight to open our borders and allow subsidized foreign sugar to displace American sugar, claiming they’re doing it for the consumer and in the name of free trade.

There is no free trade in sugar. Most sugar around the world is consumed in the country where it is produced or sold under preferential contracts to specific trading partners. Most foreign governments subsidize their own producers to maintain jobs and provide stable food supplies, then dump excess sugar production on the world market for whatever they can get.

So-called "free trade" agreements have given foreign countries the right to send more sugar here. With Mexico trying to re-write NAFTA to better serve Mexican sugar producers and Canadian "stuffed molasses" being smuggled into the U.S. and crystallized into sugar, there is a glut of sugar. Florida farmers are paying a heavy price for "free" trade, yet under the trade agreements we cannot send one teaspoon of sugar their way.

Since we are locked into the WTO and NAFTA guaranteeing foreign producers access to our market regardless of demand, we need some form of inventory management to solve the problem of excess sugar supplies. But American farm policy does not need to be re-written to benefit the big candy makers, food companies or foreign sugar farmers.

* Also appeared in the Tampa Tribune on May 25, 2001.