| Trucks in Toronto, Canada
load up with molasses, water and sugar, then travel south
across the border. They unload in Detroit, Mich., the sugar
is spun out, the molasses and water are reloaded into trucks
and they head north for another load.
Referred to as stuffed molasses "this sugar
circumvent the TRQ (Tariff Rate Quota)," Nebraska
Growers Association President Bob Busch said. "This is
the biggest immediate problem facing the sugar industry
today."
"It is not a white refined sugar, but it is used in
the food industry, primarily in cereals," Busch said.
"There is the equivalent of about 42,000 acres of
sugarbeets being brought in. That is a little more than the
Scottsbluff factory produces."
The sugar is brought into the states from Canada,
however, the original starting place for the sugar is
unknown. "It is problem off the world market,"
Mitchell sugarbeet producer Randy Hoff said.
With the present oversupply of sugar "it's not right
for our local communities and our producers to have to be
threatened by unfair trade issues like this," he added.
"We go out of business because we have to take some
other country's sugar. Count-ries who have no regulatory
costs."
When Heartland Sugar began bringing the stuffed molasses
in about two years ago, the U.S. Customs let it slip by
because it started on a very small scale. As the amount of
stuffed molasses crossing the border increased the U.S.
Customs ruled the action was circumventing the quota and
tried to put a stop to the practice.
Heartland Sugar then filed a lawsuit against the U.S.
Customs before a trade judge.
"We are aiming for a legislative way to stop the
practice," Busch said. "The courts are going to
take several months, we can't stand the bleeding."
"We are presently looking for the right individual
(in Congress) to champion the cause," Hoff said.
The bill would include more than just stuffed molasses,
it would also include any product that does not show up on
the line item of the TRQ. Items that circumvent the quotas
and flood the American market. |