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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Phillip Hayes
Monday, March 23, 2009 202-507-8303
WASHINGTON—When asked to choose between U.S. sugar and imports, seven in 10 American adults (71 percent) said they’d rather buy domestic, even if the foreign sugar were slightly cheaper, according to a new survey commissioned by the American Sugar Alliance and conducted by Harris Interactive®.
Survey participants were given two opinions and asked which one came closest to their views—buying U.S. sugar that may cost a little more due to stricter safety, labor, and environmental standards and the lack of government subsidy checks to American producers, or buying imported sugar that might be slightly cheaper because of foreign subsidies and lower environmental, labor, and safety standards.
An identical survey done in 2007 produced similar results with 75 percent of adults siding with the opinion of buying domestic sugar.
Jack Roney, an economist with the American Sugar Alliance, said the results are particularly interesting since economic factors are so different today than they were two years ago.
“The economy was strong in 2007 and people had far more disposable income to spend at the grocery store, yet we find similar results in 2009 when Americans are stretching every penny,” he said. “Obviously, there are factors at play here that outweigh pricing.”
The biggest factor, Roney concluded, is food safety. “People are still confident that U.S. food products are the safest in the world and they aren’t willing to compromise safety for price,” he said.
Food safety might explain why 91 percent of adult Americans also placed a high level of importance on the nation’s ability to produce food domestically instead of relying on foreign suppliers. This is up from 88 percent in the 2007 survey.
Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are currently deciding whether or not to increase foreign sugar imports this year, and Roney hopes they will consider public opinion before making any decisions.
“The American public clearly wants U.S. sugar producers around,” he explained. “Falling sugar prices show that the market is not undersupplied, and adding more unneeded foreign sugar to the market will only make things harder on American producers.”
Click here to see the QuickQuerySM online omnibus data tables.
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Harris Interactive® fielded the 2009 study on behalf of American Sugar Alliance from March 12 to March 16, 2009 via its QuickQuerySM online omnibus service, interviewing a nationwide sample of 2,486 U.S. adults aged 18 years and older. The 2007 study fielded July 16 to July 18, 2007 also via the QuickQuerySM online omnibus service, interviewing a nationwide sample of 2,407 U.S. adults aged 18 years and older. Data for both studies were weighted using propensity score weighting to be representative of the total U.S. adult population on the basis of region, age within gender, education, household income, race/ethnicity, and propensity to be online. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated; a full methodology is available.
For a copy of the study, or to learn more about sugar policy, visit www.sugaralliance.org. |
