| WASHINGTON (AP) - Farmers destroyed 7 percent of this year's
sugar crop under a federal program intended to reduce a price-depressing
glut.
In return for plowing under 102,000 acres of sugar beets, the 5,000
farmers received title to some surplus sugar being held by the government,
according to the Agriculture Department.
Producers are asking USDA to repeat the program in 2001, although a
decision is not expected until after spring planting. ``We still have a
glut of sugar on this market,'' Jack Roney, an economist for the American
Sugar Alliance, said Friday.
The destruction of sugar this year will save taxpayers $555,000 in
storage costs for the 277,349 tons of government-held sugar that was given
to farmers who participated in the program, according to USDA.
That sugar came from processors who forfeited more than a million tons
to the government this year in lieu of repaying federal price-support
loans. Processors are allowed to make such forfeitures when domestic sugar
prices fall below the loans' value, as they have this year.
Since the early 1980s, USDA has avoided forfeitures by keeping imports
low enough to stabilize domestic prices, but prices have been driven down
this year because of big increases in U.S. production and other factors.
More than a third of the sugar destroyed was in Minnesota, where
farmers plowed under 36,370 acres. There were 16,587 acres in North Dakota
and South Dakota, 15,653 acres in Idaho and Utah, and 12,242 acres in
Michigan. USDA did not separate figures for all states.
The remaining acreage was in California, Colorado, Nebraska, Ohio,
Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. Sugar cane was not eligible for the
program.
The sugar glut continues to keep prices depressed.
Minnesota-based American Crystal Sugar Co., one of the nation's biggest
grower cooperatives, says its members will receive an average $31.50 a ton
this year, or about $680 an acre. That is more than $10 a ton less than
the cooperative's average payment for the past 10 years.
``That's not a sustainable situation,'' said Jim Horvath, the
cooperative's chief executive |