Colorado

CONSUMER BENEFITS:

• Like all Americans, Colorado consumers pay 22 percent less for sugar than consumers in other developed countries*.
• When sugar prices plunged by almost 20 percent during 1996 - 2004, injuring producers, industrial sugar users and retail grocers did not pass the savings onto consumers.
• Colorado consumers rely on a strong sugar industry in their state to supply this essential food ingredient.

TAXPAYER BENEFITS: The U.S. sugar program is designed and intended to operate at no cost to American taxpayers.

JOBS: 7,162 jobs* in Colorado are a portion of the 372,228 jobs nationwide that rely on a strong U.S. sweetener industry.

ECONOMIC IMPACT: $225,200,000 of economic activity is generated in the state of Colorado each year by the U.S. sugar and corn sweetener industries*. As part of the national sweetener industry, Colorado is one of the 42 states that help create $21.1 billion in economic activity.

SUGARBEET INDUSTRY: More than 230 growers produce approximately 28,600 acres of beets, which are processed in Fort Morgan (2008). Growers have purchased the Western Sugar Company and formed a cooperative in order to maintain the Colorado industry. Colorado sugar produces and processors are highly efficient, and provide a high quality of sugar to meet 42 different specifications to industrial users and food processors who are located close to the source of this important ingredient, and it is available to them upon demand at a fair and reasonable price.

CORN SWEETENER INDUSTRY: $24,900,000 is added to the value of the Colorado corn crop as a result of the corn refining industry*. The added demand for corn benefits each of the 3,348 farms that raise 1.18 million acres of corn in Colorado. About 760,000,000 bushels of corn nationwide are used each year for making sweetener. This represents over 8 percent of the U.S. corn crop.

EFFICIENT PRODUCERS: More than 100 countries produce sugar and American producers are among the most efficient. More than half of the world's sugar is produced at a higher cost than in the U.S.

A MAJOR IMPORTER: The U.S. is the second largest net importer of sugar in the world. The WTO and NAFTA trade agreements require the U.S. to import sugar from 41 countries, about 15 percent of our market, whether we need the foreign sugar or not.

RESPONDING TO PREDATORY FOREIGN TRADE PRACTICES: Virtually every sugar exporting country dumps its surplus onto the world market at prices below any country's cost of production. Until these unfair foreign trade practices are addressed we must maintain a domestic sugar policy that responds to these predatory practices.

U.S. SWEETENER POLICY BENEFITS AMERICA

* SOURCES: American Sugarbeet Growers, 2009.

"RETAIL PRICES OF SUGAR AROUND THE WORLD IN 2002," LMC INTERNATIONAL LTD., February 2003.

"THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SUGAR AND CORN SWEETENER INDUSTRY TO THE U.S. ECONOMY," LMC INTERNATIONAL LTD., August 2001.