Country-by-Country Sugar Subsidy Developments
Compiled by ASA staff using USDA’s Global Agricultural Information Network reports.
Compiled by ASA staff using USDA’s Global Agricultural Information Network reports.
The widespread use of foreign government support and subsidies have contributed to a wildly unpredictable global sugar market. And foreign intervention only continues to rise as nations struggle to prop up their inefficient producers and deal with the overproduction spurred by these very same sugar subsidies. As a result, sugar exports are being dumped by dozens of countries on the world market at prices that are half the cost of producing it world-wide and well below their own countries’ internal consumer prices.
The American Sugar Alliance recently reviewed all of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) 2020 Semi-Annual Sugar GAIN reports and compiled all mentions of the various ways more than 20 foreign governments intervene in their sugar markets into one convenient report.
State run companies. Direct payments. Export subsidies. Government-set prices.
These are just some of the sour policies used for such a sweet crop, especially when compared to America’s successful no-cost policy, which doesn’t rely on subsidies. And all of it is documented in this report.
Let’s look at a snapshot of recent developments affecting sugar sectors in countries around the world, including some covered in the aforementioned 2020 USDA GAIN reports.:
Meanwhile, America’s strong no-cost sugar policy protects efficient American sugar farmers and workers and ensures that we maintain an affordable supply of this essential ingredient.
But if we were to unilaterally weaken or cripple this successful policy in the face of rampant subsidization, without passing the Zero-for-Zero Sugar Policy, the more than 142,000 sugar farmers and workers the American sugar industry supports would likely face bankruptcy.
After all, the multigenerational family farmers that grow sugarcane in three states or sugarbeets in 11 states, and all of the factory workers that process sugar, can’t compete against the billions that foreign treasuries dump into the market.
That’s why the American sugar industry is advocating that Congress pass Congressman Ted Yoho’s Zero-for-Zero Sugar Policy (H. Con. Res. 7) to put a stop to the wave of sugar subsides causing market turmoil. It’s a common-sense proposal that would only drop America’s no-cost sugar policy in exchange for the verified elimination of all foreign sugar subsidies.
It’s time for the Zero-for-Zero Sugar Policy.