On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:24:26 -0500, George Shirley
> wrote:


>I live in rice growing country and have watched the acreage planted in
>rice go down by about 75% since the mid-sixties. Government controls on
>"allotments", control of acreage, price controls, etc pretty much doomed
>the rice industry in Texas and Louisiana. It became more attractive for
>the farmer to raise soybeans, sugar cane, and even crawfish.
>
>Sugar cane went down for a long time due to other nations subsidizing
>their cane crops and put ours out of business for many years. Cane has
>made somewhat of a comeback but not as much as previously.
>

i think you got the sugar thing backwards, george. the u.s lays heavy
tariffs on foreign sugar and lavishes subsidies on u.s. growers.
sugar prices in the u.s. are typically a generous multiple of the
world price.

"Of all the government’s farm-support programs, there are few as
egregious as the tangle of loans, quotas and import tariffs set up to
protect the well-connected club of American sugar producers at the
expense of American consumers and farmers in the developing world.
This year’s farm bill will add American taxpayers to the list of
casualties.

"Under the current system, the government guarantees a price floor for
sugar and limits the sugar supply — placing quotas on domestic
production and quotas and tariffs to limit imports. According to the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, sugar supports
cost American consumers — who pay double the average world price —
more than $1.5 billion a year. The system also bars farmers in some of
the poorest countries of the world from selling their sugar here."

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/opinion/30tues2.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin>

this is one reason that high-fructose corn syrup is all over the
goddamn place.

the sugar subsidies are also a rich source of political corruption in
florida and elsewhere.

"Big Sugar is not the only beneficiary of this corporate welfare. The
farm bill is larded with subsidies and other rewards for agricultural
producers. The eagerness of members of Congress to please their sugar
daddies is not surprising. Campaign donations from the sugar industry
have topped $3 million in each of the last four political cycles.
American consumers and taxpayers, as well as poor farmers overseas,
shouldn’t have to pay the price." (ibid)

your pal,
blake