05/27/08 Farm Bill -sugarbeets

Now that Congress has enacted a farm bill and overridden a presidential veto farmers and ranchers now know where they stand. All this week we'll look at the farm bill and its impact on Idaho. Today we look at the sugar provisions. Mark Duffin of the Idaho Sugarbeet Growers Association says there are some changes for the better. DUFFIN "Modest increase in the loan rate. We haven't had an increase in over 20 years and with our production costs going up like they have that's long overdue and so we felt good about that. There's also the provisions to deal with oversupply from imported subsidized sugar with the sugar-to-ethanol program and that will help to deal with problems that come up there. I think a lot of the fine tuning that they've done are very good changes." Growers had been hoping for a penny increase in the support price but ended up with three quarters of a cent. Duffin says Congress 'tweaked' the overall program so that 85 percent of the domestic market is assured for domestic producers and there's new timing for market allocations. Duffin says all in all the bill brings some certainty to Idaho sugar beet growers. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott