Florida Sugar Has Big Stake In Talks

November 29, 1999|By ROBERT H. BUKER

As the World Trade Organization talks begin in Seattle and focus international attention on agriculture, Floridians have a huge stake in the outcome. The fate of tens of thousands of Florida farm jobs and hundreds of thousands of farm jobs across the country will be on the line.

One of the crops that will attract global attention is sugar -- wherein Florida accounts for 40,000 jobs and more than $2 billion in annual economic impact.

Several other countries that produce sugar are coming to Seattle demanding that the United States remove its border restrictions that safe-guard American sugar farmers from the predatory trading practices of foreign governments. Brazil, Australia and Thailand recently formed an organization called the Global Alliance for Sugar Trade Reform to demand more access to U.S. markets for their sugar. At the same time, they are unwilling to lower the protections or subsidies they grant their own farmers. Those subsidies create distortions in the marketplace that would make it impossible for American farmers to compete against highly subsidized foreign sugar.

American sugar farmers support the concept of true global free trade, completely free of any type of govern-ment interference in the marketplace. Over the past decade, the United States has lowered tariffs and removed all domestic government controls on sugar production that kept prices stable. We allow more access to foreign sugar than almost any other country.

Because of our efficient farming practices and technology, American sugar farmers would welcome the opportunity to compete with foreign farmers.

Unfortunately, the extreme distortion of the world sugar market makes any such free trade competition impossible. Until the trade-distorting practices of the European Union, Brazil and Australia are eliminated, the United States must retain the minimal sugar policy now in place to prevent foreign subsidized "dump market" sugar from displacing American production.

As long as foreign governments like those in the European Union heavily subsidize their sugar farmers and allow those farmers to overproduce and dump surplus sugar on the world market at prices far below the cost of producing the sugar, the U.S. must stand firm. Dumping is illegal in the trade of manufactured goods for obvious reasons. The same principles must apply to agriculture.

Heading to Seattle, sugar farmers have pledges of support from top U.S. negotiators. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman said recently, "I have told sugar growers and producers that we would not sacrifice the sugar growers or any other parts of agriculture at the round, and certainly they would not be treated in any kind of disproportionately negative way."

However, there will be enormous pressure on our negotiators as they discuss the global trade needs of other agricultural products and manufactured goods.

Florida farmers know from experience that even good trade agreements don't always live up to their billing when other countries do not live up to the agreement. The failures of NAFTA with Mexico, which caused Florida crops such as tomatoes to be decimated, are still fresh in our minds.

Agriculture will be front and center during the WTO round that begins with opening talks on Tuesday and will continue for three years. These talks will focus on critical issues of market access, export subsidies, tariff reductions, labor and environ-mental policies, state trading enterprises and internal supports. Our negotiators must insist that global free trade also be fair trade and that important social issues such as labor and environment be included in the discussion.

The United States is the fourth-largest sugar producer in the world, growing and processing sugar from cane or beets in 17 states and providing 420,000 American jobs and adding $26 billion to the economy each year. Even with some of the world's highest government-imposed costs for labor and environmental protection, U.S. producers are among the world's most efficient.

The countries demanding access to our markets are the beneficiaries of massive government programs in their own countries. European Union countries, for instance, are much higher cost producers than the U.S. and they enjoy receiving more than 40 percent more for their sugar in government subsidies. This encourages EU farmers to overproduce each year, and the surplus is dumped on the world market, bringing just a few cents a pound. That dump price is far below the cost to produce such sugar.

In Brazil, sugar farmers have received massive government subsidies as they produced alcohol from sugarcane to be used as fuel for automobiles. Yet, subsidies remain. There are also serious social issues in Brazil, including child labor and lax environmental protections that put countries with higher standards like the U.S. at a serious cost disadvantage. It is no wonder that many countries are opposed to even having environment and labor be a part of the overall trade negotiations.

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