| FARGO, N.D. -- With the farm bill's sugar provisions mostly set in
current farm bill versions before Congress, sugar groups are hoping the
farm bill passes before the year's end so they don't have to re-defend
their issues again next year.
The farm policy will be one of the hot topics as farmers meet for
annual sugar meetings this year. Two of the co-ops have new top
leadership:
Dec. 3 is the annual meeting for Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar
Cooperative of Renville. It will be at the Willmar (Minn.) Holiday Inn
and, as always, is closed to the news media. John Richmond, the co-op's
president and chief executive, is in his first year at the post, replacing
Al Ritacco, who died during the past year. The co-op has faced significant
financial and legal challenges with crop insurers in the past year.
- Dec. 4 is the annual gathering of shareholders for Minn-Dak Farmers
Cooperative of Wahpeton, N.D. The event runs from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
at the Fargo (N.D.) Holiday Inn. It will be the first annual meeting
in which new President David Roche will preside.
The meeting is chaired by Victor Krabbenhoft and includes elections
and reports from sugar and byproduct marketers. It is followed by a 6
to 8 p.m. reception.
- Dec. 6 is the joint annual meeting of the American Crystal Sugar Co.
and the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers -- both also at the Holiday
Inn in Fargo.
Morning sessions include speeches by association President Craig
Halfmann and Luther Markwart, executive vice president of the American
Sugarbeet Growers Association.
Crystal's meeting starts with a luncheon humorist, Steve Rizzo.
Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., will speak at mid-afternoon Dec. 6,
sometime between addresses by Robert Vivatson of Cavalier, N.D.,
Crystal's chairman of the board, and James Horvath, president and
chief executive officer.
Mark Weber, executive vice president of the growers association,
says there will be numerous topics to discuss, including the farm
bill. The Senate Agriculture Committee has passed a farm bill that is
pending before the full Senate in the next several days. As in the
past, the program is to be operated at no cost to U.S. taxpayers
"to the maximum extent practicable," according to an
American Sugar Alliance.
Here are other summary points:
- Non-recourse loan programs are authorized through 2011 at the same
levels as have been in place since 1985. The secretary of agriculture
can reduce the rates if foreign competitors reduce subsidies below
their current World Trade Organization maximums.
- The secretary of agriculture can impose domestic marketing
allotments to balance markets under certain conditions. These only
operate if Mexican and Canadian trade problems are fixed.
- The bill also eliminates marketing assessments on sugar when
companies sell sugar. It also eliminates a 1-cent-
per-pound penalty processors pay when they forfeit sugar that has
been pledged as collateral for CCC loan.
- The bill also reinstates no-cost provisions originally in the 1990
sugar program, but inadvertently left out of the 1995 farm bill. Sen.
Rick Santorum, R-Pa., has promised colleagues he'll try to eliminate
sugar import restrictions and will try to reduce the loan rate from 18
cents a pound to 14 cents.
"We believe we can defeat his amendment," Weber says.
"Traditionally, we have always had much more support in the
Senate. For sugar, we've got to hope that the whole package moves. Our
growers grow these other crops, too."
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