Politico’s Morning Ag Report says North Carolina Republican Representative Virginia Foxx is working on sugar market reforms as the 2018 Farm Bill draws closer.
Foxx and a bipartisan group of more than 30 members of Congress have introduced the Sugar Policy Modernization Act. She says the policies within the legislation will keep processors from having to forfeit their crops and default on loans. The Act would take away price supports and repeals current marketing and quota requirements that help to control the amount of sugar moving through the American marketplace.
Foxx tells a news conference that, “The legislation will get the sugar program to a zero-cost program by ending special-interest bailouts.” However, the co-chairs of the House Sugar Caucus opposed the bill, saying it would have devastating effects on sugar producers and consumers. Representatives Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, and Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings say the bill would deny sugar producers access to nonrecourse loans and, as a result, those producers would have difficulty obtaining capital and staying in business.
Galen Lee, president of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association, says that “a better name would be the ‘Sugar Farmer Bankruptcy Bill’ because that’s exactly what the Foxx plan is designed to do.”
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting News Service.