Stenholm obviously referred to the fact that savings in lower commodity prices are virtually never passed on to consumers by the food, candy and beverage manufacturers. For instance, the American Sugar Alliance, which hosts the Symposium, has reported that while wholesale refined sugar prices have dropped almost 30 percent since 1996, products using high amounts of sweeteners have risen during the period from 4 to 14 percent. Even grocery stores have failed to pass the savings in wholesale sugar prices along to consumers in the price of sugar on the store shelf.

Stenholm said, ``We need to get more of the consumers' dollars into the producers' pockets,'' rather than having the benefit of lower commodity prices going to the bottom line of the food processors.

He said the manufacturers have got to realize ``that it's not in your best interest'' to always be pushing for lower prices being paid to farmers.

With Congress wrestling with a new all-inclusive Farm Bill, Stenholm laid out the timetable he sees for passing a 10-year omnibus package that covers all farm programs, plus many of the nation's nutritional programs such as Food Stamps.

The 51-member House Agriculture Committee has already passed its version of the Farm Bill, and Stenholm said he expects a full House vote on the bill (H.R. 2646) in early September. By October he said he thought the Senate would pass its version. The conference committee, to work out the differences between the two, ``will probably go right up to December 24.'' But he said he does expect a Farm Bill to be passed this year.

He complimented the sugar industry for coming to the House Agriculture Committee with a proposal -- inventory management, or limiting marketing in times of surplus -- that is designed to operate U.S. sugar policy at no cost. Stenholm said the idea of inventory management ``for right now is the best idea and we'll fight very hard for it in the Farm Bill.''

Stenholm recognized that inventory management will work only if the nation's borders are protected from violation of the tariff rate quota. In that context, he said the tariff rate circumvention scheme known as stuffed molasses, a syrup concoction coming in mainly from Canada, is an example ``of breaking the rules.'' He also said that trade problems with Mexico over sugar must be resolved.

Also on trade, Stenholm said he is in favor of TPA, or trade promotion authority for the President in negotiating trade agreements that must be voted on by the Congress without amendments, but only if agricultural leaders like himself and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest (R-TX) have a say in the negotiation process.

The American Sugar Alliance is a national coalition of growers, processors and refiners of sugarbeets, sugarcane and corn for sweetener.

For more information about U.S. sugar policy visit American Sugar Alliance at http://www.sugaralliance.org .