A request from America’s largest sugar producers that the United States throw up new barriers against the import of sugar beet thick juice from southern Alberta is simply an example of the “predatory anticompetitive agenda” of Big Sugar, says the importer of the Canadian product.
In a petition to Washington, the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Co-operative accuses other industry players of trying to put it out of business. There are fears in Canada that any decision to erect barriers against thick juice imports also could put the Rogers Sugar plant in Taber, Alta., out of business.
Read Also
European wheat production makes big recovery
EU crop prospects are vastly improved, which could mean fewer canola and durum imports from Canada.
“We do not now intend to go quietly into obscurity and allow a competitor to significantly disadvantage our co-operative by applying financial stress,” the co-op said in a brief to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The USDA is holding consultations on a request from the sugar industry to lift an exemption for thick juice from U.S. sugar quotas.
And the American government “should not allow itself to be a tool in that endless campaign to kill competition and to seek the last bit of advantage in the marketplace.”
Last year the Minnesota co-op imported 36,000 tonnes of thick juice from the Rogers Sugar plant in Taber. Cargill then processed it into refined sugar, which was sold by the co-operative.
The juice sales were worth $12.5 million US to the Taber plant.
In its bid to keep access to the Canadian semi-refined product, the Minnesota co-op has received support from Cargill and the Sweetener Users Association, which argued that since the government already had ruled the thick juice to be exempt, it should not go back on its word.
However, the sugar industry’s major players insist that any unrestricted import of sugar product undermines the strict U.S. sugar protection policy to the advantage of just one player.
“Marketing of the resulting sugar, if not subject to allotment limitations, would increase the overall domestic sugar supply, thereby driving down prices, increasing the sellers’ sales volume, market share and revenues at the expense of their competitors and undercutting the integrity and fairness of the marketing allotment system,” said the industry group.
The Minnesota importing co-operative said federal officials should keep the minuscule size of the imports in mind.
Under the U.S. farm bill sugar policy, the 2006 sugar beet allotment is 4,776,380 tons, it noted.
“The sugar in question here amounts to seven-tenths of one percent of the total beet sugar allotment … the argument that current law creates a dangerous loophole that threatens the U.S. market is entirely bogus.”
