12/06/06 Sugar beet growers sour to change

The candy and sugar user industry is trying to change the current sugar policy in hopes that the price will drop. If sugar begins to receive subsidies says the Congressional Research Service it could be up for challenges through the World Trade Organization. That's just one of the reasons that Idaho sugar beet growers don't like the proposed change says Mark Duffin, executive director of the growers association. DUFFIN "We like being a no cost program the way we are now. We could do some fine tuning and tweaking of the program but basically keep the same program that we have now would be our preference rather than go to a costly subsidy type program." There are some estimates that putting sugar into a subsidy category would cost more than one million dollars and that money would come from funds earmarked for other ag commodities. DUFFIN "Our position has been very supportive of continuation of the farm bill. In fact we had actually come out in support of just extending the current farm bill but we're told that's not what's going to happen now. If we could just have something that looks very similar to what we have now we would be quite satisfied." We'll see what Congress does when they start work on the farm bill early next year. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott