Sugar Program: Impact on Sweetener Users and Producers (Testimony,
05/24/95, GAO/T-RCED-95-204).

The U.S. sugar program, through its price support loans and tariff-rate
import quotas, protects sugar producers from lower world prices but
boosts domestic sugar prices, costing users an estimated $1.4 billion
annually.  Benefits are concentrated among a relatively small percentage
of sugarcane and sugar beet farms, and there is no limit to the size of
an individual's benefits.  GAO estimates that 42 percent of the sugar
growers' benefits went to one percent of all sugar farms in 1991.  GAO
recommends that Congress consider legislation to move the industry
toward a more open market.  GAO suggests that, as part of this
transition, Congress gradually lower the loan rate for sugar and direct
the Agriculture Department to adjust import quotas accordingly.
Reducing the loan rate gradually would give producers time to make
orderly adjustments.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-RCED-95-204
     TITLE:  Sugar Program: Impact on Sweetener Users and Producers
      DATE:  05/24/95
   SUBJECT:  Sugar
             Price supports
             Agricultural production
             Foreign trade policies
             Import regulation
             Commodity marketing
             Farm income stabilization programs
             Loans
IDENTIFIER:  USDA Sugar-Containing Products Re-Export Program
             NAFTA
             North American Free Trade Agreement
             
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