Sugar Farmers hope for help from Congress

This is a tough one for me but I fall on the side of free trade and not tariffs for lower cost sugar from Central America. I mean I want La. to make as money as they can but if they can't compete with sugar from Central America then ya know what? Maybe free trade isn't the problem, maybe their costs are the problem.

Farmers say trade agreements threaten their jobs

By ELLEN TANDY
[email protected]
2theadvocate.com staff


Sugar cane farmers from around the state were at the Capitol Friday morning to applaud Gov. Kathleen Blanco for her efforts in trying to stop the Central American Free Trade Agreement.


Local farmers claim CAFTA threatens their livelihoods.

Sugar provides 27,000 jobs in Louisiana, and it is a $1.7 billion industry in the state. Farmers say CAFTA would likely send them to the unemployment line.

"I would have to look for another job -- bottom line. We would have to change our farm," said sugar cane farmer Wallace Ellender. "There's not really a lot of crops we can grow in south Louisiana that are as economically beneficial as sugar." The U.S. House of Representatives will now vote on CAFTA. It recently passed in the Senate by a narrow margin.

 

I wish the government would give me money too, but they won't.

Perhaps the farmers should develop a different skillset if they can no longer compete.

 

Ross Perot said in 92 that Nafta would destroy our economy. Since then the textile industry in Louisiana has become non-existant. Jobs are leaving America at an alarming rate. This is just another example of the damage these Free Trade policies will cause to our industries. I'm a conservative, but I do not agree with the Republican support of Free Trade.

 

Its not that they can't compete with production cost, its the things that they can't control that are the problem.

The US price and Central america price of sugar are almost identical. The US controls its production to stabalize this price, while Central America ends up producing more than it needs, which it will be able to sell at below production cost. What CAFTA is going to do is guarantee to take some of that extra sugar and bring it here, regardless of whether we need it or not (which NAFTA has also agreed to do, only Mexican sugar production has been down, so Mexico recently has not been sending its alloted amount. CAFTA did not regard the NAFTA allotment, and basically promised to take from Central America what it had already promised to take from Mexico).


As far as costs:
Some costs are associated with wages. How do you compete with places where the minimum wages are $4.86/day (Guatemala), $2.97/day (Honduras), $5.24/day (El Salvador), $133/month (Costa Rica), $41.53/month!!!! (Nicaragua) and $119/month (the Dominican Republic).

But don't think that CAFTA is going to help these poor people. Cafta lowers the Labor standards the US requires for countries to maintain in order to trade. Instead of the current international standards, CAFTA only requires countries to maintain their own laws, (Guatemalan law interfering with labor’s right to strike and El Salvador’s laws hindering union formation would both currently not be permissable, but if CAFTA is signed they become OK).
What this does is create a race to the bottom- the country with the lowest labor standards will be the one most able to turn a nice profit.

 

It only destroys economies that are agrarian or based on unskilled labor. If jobs are leaving at such an alarming rate, why is unemployment not skyrocketing as well? The easy and obvious answer is that people adapt and enter different (and typically better-paying) professions.

 

I'm not sure I would call Wal-Mart a better paying profession! :wink:

 

that deserves re posting. Thank you.

 

but when your manufacturing base goes overseas, a country becomes a 'service" company, relying solely on servicing others. You need to have a strong manufacturing base in the economy. We still do but it's going fast.

 

I agree but the workers IMO need to realize what is happening and if they want to keep their jobs, restructure these labor contracts.

A friend of mine works for GM and and as everyone knows, GM is in some serious trouble as is Ford. These labor contracts are killing them........like 50% of the revenue from each car sold goes to pay for current retirees of GM. Then they've got 1/3 of their workforce ready to retire............GM is in business to make money as was the maker of LifeSavers candy.

The cost of sugar in the US forced the LifeSavers maker to move to Canada where it was less and therefore would offer more profit. What's a company supposed to do? If our crawfish, catfish, sugar is the best in the world, then the workers either have to rely on people paying a higher price for "better" goods or cut prices to meet the competition. If not, they can't expect the government to rush in and save them.