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The Coalition for Sugar Reform seeks legislation that would scale back the program, a mixture of loans, price guarantees and import quotas that keeps domestic prices well above world levels. A coalition-backed amendment to the farm bill was defeated in the House.

Every lawmaker from Minnesota, the nation's largest producer of sugar beets, voted against the amendment, except for Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Bloomington.

Ramstad voted to scale back the program because of its cost to consumers and taxpayers, says his chief of staff, Dean Peterson, noting that a GAO study last year found that the program cost $1.9 billion in higher food costs.

-NT>Richard Lugar, D-Ind., the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, isn't holding out much hope of succeeding this year, says his spokesman, Andy Fisher.

The American Sugar Alliance, a coalition of sugar grower groups which has spent $380,000 lobbying in favor of the program and on other sugar-related issues this year, is optimistic that the program will remain intact.

"We're in better shape in the Senate than the House," says Jack Roney, an economist with the alliance. "Overall in the Senate, we've seen very successful votes in the past several years."

Still, Minnesota sugar beet farmer David Kragnes worries that the Senate could delay the farm bill by making changes to it. Lugar and Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, who chairs the committee, say they favor a more conservation-oriented bill than the one that passed the House.

I'm concerned that the Senate will mess around with other parts of the farm bill, and waylay the whole thing for another year, said Kragnes, who farms 500 acres of sugar beets and 700 acres of wheat in Felton, Minn.

-NT>The farm bill won't take effect until next October, when the current farm law expires. If the Senate and House can't agree on legislation this fall, opponents of the sugar program will have another year to make their case.

In the past, opponents of the sugar program have attempted to abolish it. This time, they're trying a less severe route.

The program allows sugar beet growers to borrow money from the government at 22.9 cents a pound. Opponents want to reduce that by 1.3 cents to 21.6 cents a pound.

The program also allows growers to pay back the price-support loans by forfeiting sugar if prices fall below a certain level. When they do so, the growers pay a penalty of about a penny per pound; opponents want to double that penalty.

Kragnes, the sugar beet farmer, says those provisions would put him out of business.

The loan rate reduction would cost him $45,000 in a typical year, based on his average crop size, he says. And if market conditions caused him to forfeit sugar, the doubling of the penalty could cost him another $70,000.

"What they're proposing, although less severe on its surface then what they've proposed historically, would accomplish the same thing," says Jim Horvath, CEO of American Crystal Sugar Co., a cooperative of 3,000 farmers in Minnesota and North Dakota.

The government already is paying $1.35 million a month to store 741,148 tons of raw and refined sugar that has been forfeited by producers to pay off price-support loans.

The domestic price of 21 cents is more than double the rate that some countries sell it for. Brazil, for example, sells sugar for only 9 cents a pound, but only a token amount is allowed in the United States.

Consumer groups and candy- and food-makers are pushing for more foreign sugar, arguing that the higher U.S. sugar prices drive up the cost of food. Sugar growers claim that foreign sugar is subsidized and would pose unfair competition. They also say the program helps keep prices stable and protects agriculture jobs.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, want to direct some of the sugar program savings to Everglades restoration.