For the better part of a year, I’ve received phone calls from farmers who want to discuss sugar prices.

As their lender, the cane growers want to make sure I understand the financial dilemma they are facing with high input costs and raw sugar prices hovering near or below forfeiture range (the level where it no longer makes financial sense to sell a crop).

These folks want to repay their operating loans in a timely manner, but more and more, the farmers we represent are struggling to make it work. Read More >

It’s no secret that urban news outlets have been critical of farmers and farm policy in recent years—much of it a direct result of an aggressive spin campaign by a handful of well-heeled and vocal opponents. 

Ironically, the same farmers who are being attacked for being “giant agribusinesses” lack the resources to defend themselves.  That’s why many ag groups have pooled their resources together to jointly fund a program to build better relationships with big-city reporters.
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Through a combination of tariffs and non-tariff measures (e.g., a unique requirement that vitamin A be added to sugar), the Guatemalan government effectively blocks all foreign imports.

The industry is regulated and controlled by two organizations owned and operated by members of the sugar industry itself—ASAZGUA and COMETRO, the former being responsible for pricing in the domestic and export markets and the latter determining internal marketing and distribution.

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WASHINGTON—As food manufacturers lobby the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to flood the American sugar market with imports and sink prices, a new study unveiled today shows U.S. companies are already paying less for sugar than their counterparts in other developed countries. Read More >