A group of stakeholders led by the National Confectioners Association and the Sweetener Users Association has formed the Alliance for Fair Sugar Policy (AFSP) with the goal of pushing Congress to modernize the U.S. sugar program.
The Alliance for Fair Sugar Policy is made up of family-owned businesses and manufacturers, retailers, food and beverage companies, trade associations, environmental advocates, taxpayer watchdog organizations, government advocates, think tanks and other organizations. In a press release announcing its founding, the group says it aims to help “level the playing field” for American manufacturers when it comes to creating jobs.
"The family farmer and the families who depend on manufacturing workers should be at the center of modernizing the sugar program,” said John Downs, president and CEO of the National Confectioners Association and AFSP co-chairman. “Our modest approach is the right policy to protect and create jobs for both the family farmer and American manufacturing workers. There is a simple solution — it's time for Congress to say yes to fairness, yes to competitiveness and yes to protecting and creating American manufacturing jobs."
The AFSP says the U.S. sugar program, which has not been updated in 80 years, causes manufacturers to pay two times more for sugar than the rest of the world, putting American businesses at a competitive disadvantage.
Citing data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the AFSP also said that each sugar-processing job subsidized through artificially high U.S. sugar prices costs three American manufacturing jobs. The group also pointed to a U.S. Census Bureau estimate that the sugar program resulted in the loss of 123,000 jobs between 1997 and 2015.
AFSP supports The Sugar Policy Modernization Act (H.R. 4265 / S. 2086), sponsored by U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). The group says the bill creates an adequate supply of sugar based on a “reasonable competitive approach that reaches from the farm to the retail shelf – without risking an appropriate safety net for farmers.”
"For too long, consumers, small businesses and manufacturers have paid the price for an outdated program that hurts so many and benefits only a few,” said Rick Pasco, president of the Sweetener Users Association and AFSP co-chairman. "The sugar program is a complicated bureaucratic mess of price supports, market allocations, quotas and government guarantees that are ultimately backstopped by taxpayer dollars. This is the time for this Congress and this administration to do the right thing for American businesses and American workers."
