The Cost Of Sugar Quotas And Price Supports

See Break the sugar addiction, an editorial from the Washington Post, from 1-30-11. Excerpts:

"Current law is a pastiche of protectionist measures that drives up prices for consumers in two ways. First, 4,700 U.S. sugar cane and sugar beet farmers share a government-guaranteed 85 percent of the U.S. market; the remaining 15 percent gets divided among some 40 lucky sugar-exporting countries, plus Mexico, which recently started exporting here under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Second, the government guarantees minimum prices for both raw cane sugar and refined beet sugar. The combined effect of these measures has been to keep the U.S. price well above the world price. According to Ms. Shaheen, consumers pay an extra $4 billion for their food because of these policies."

"U.S. sugar policy costs jobs among bakers, candy makers and other food processors. Estimates vary; Promar International, an agriculture consulting firm, produced a figure of 112,000 jobs lost between 1997 and 2009. In 2006, the Commerce Department estimated that the sugar program cost three manufacturing jobs for each job it saved in sugar growing and harvesting."