The following article is from the NAFB News Service:
A new study from Iowa State University researchers found that reforming federal sugar subsidies can save American consumers up to 3.5-billion dollars and generate 20-thousand new jobs each year. The study shows that in the absence of current sugar policies, food industry jobs would increase as production and exports of sugar-containing products grow, and as imports of such products from other countries decline.
Larry Graham, President of the National Confectioners Association and Chairman of the Coalition for Sugar Reform, says – this study clearly shows the impact of the high costs of the current sugar policy, but also tells us about the potential for consumers, small businesses and workers to benefit from a better policy. Graham says – the report should caution Congress against any last-minute attempts to extend the current sugar program without the opportunity to debate changes.
According to Graham, – some sugar lobbyists would like to sneak an extension of the current anti-consumer, anti-business sugar policy into the un-amendable deficit-reduction bill that the Super Committee is working on. But this would be a huge boondoggle and a miscarriage of justice that would rob Congress of the chance to bring sugar policy into the 21st century.
The study continued, although profit margins in the sugar sector would decline from current inflated levels, they would actually remain near their historic range, the industry would continue to be profitable, and production would stabilize near current levels.
Source: NAFB News Service
Posted by Haylie Shipp
