01/18/05 Amalgamated Sugar concerns over CAFTA

The nearly 11 hundred sugarbeet growers who raise the crop, process it at four Amalgamated Sugar Company plants and then sell it have real concerns about some of the trade agreements now awaiting congressional approval. Amalgamated Chairman and Elmore County grower Terry Ketterling says CATFA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement could open the door to more sugar coming into the US at a time when there's already too much. KETTERLING "Following the CAFTA agreement there is a whole barrage of free trade agreements and the precedent set by the CAFTA agreement will definitely affect our abilities to be profitable." Amalgamated officials will tell you that past agreements have allowed foreign sugar to enter the US as sugar-contained products that do not count against the import amount. The variation in the amount of production needed in the US is then put onto Idaho and American growers. KETTERLING "We as a company have reduced acreage by 16 percent. That puts us at 185 thousand acres. We're capable of doing 225-230 thousand acres." That reduced acreage this year is split among the co-op growers in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Some of the numerous trade agreements should be coming up for a vote shortly after the Inaugural Week activities end and Congress gets back to work. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott