Florida’s sugar barons, the Fanjul family, who have made their millions off of federal sugar subsidies, are a bit miffed about a new TV series on CBS starting this fall.  Starring Jimmy Smits, “Cane” is a not-so flattering portrayal of the trials and tribulations of a powerful fictitious family in the Florida sugar and rum industry.

But that’s not the only attention sugar interests are getting lately.  In the fine print of its recently-passed farm bill, the U.S. House of Representatives increased subsidies for sugar, including an increase in payment guarantees.  Combined with existing import restrictions and price controls, these make the sugar industry one of the most heavily subsidized in the country. 

Sugar comes from two sources – sugarbeets and sugarcane.  Beets are grown in 11 states, while cane is grown in just four.  The Fanjul sugar processing empire is based in Florida, and includes ownership of Domino, C&H, and Florida Crystals sugar brands, as well as large holdings in the Dominican Republic, one of the few countries from which the U.S. imports sugar. 

The House farm bill ( H.R. 2419 ) also introduces King Corn to King Sugar.  In the bill, the ultimate sugar daddy, Uncle Sam, would subsidize the use of sugar for ethanol production.  By increasing production of sugar through subsidies for the bioenergy program, the Farm Bill increases the cost to taxpayers by $3.1 billion over ten years. On the other side of the ledger, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that this provision would also save the sugar program $240 million over ten years. That doesn’t seem like a very good deal for taxpayers.

Even worse, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that U.S. sugar – in any form – costs more to turn into ethanol than almost anything else.  Hence the need for construction incentives – here’s some money to build production facilities that are not economically viable. 

The sugar industry and Congressional supporters of sugar subsidies like to say that the sugar program poses “ no cost” to taxpayers . That’s just a fancy and misleading way to obscure the fact that Uncle Sam completely controls the cost of domestic sugar production to help line the pockets of sugar producers.  In reality, according to the Congressional Research Service, U.S. Government Accountability Office , and others , the U.S. sugar program costs consumers between $400 million and $1.9 billion annually through increased costs to various sectors of the economy, and has led to job losses across sugar using industries.  Domestic sugar protectionism keeps U.S. sugar prices two to three times higher than world sugar market prices.

Back at home, while the Fanjuls fret over their treatment in a fictitious TV show, taxpayers should be fretting over the dollars they are giving to sugar industry giants.  Due largely to the efforts and millions of dollars of people like Dwayne Andreas and Archers Daniels Midland (ADM), Congress has decided the U.S. should grow its way out of energy dependency with corn-based ethanol.  And now big sugar is getting a taste of that Kool-Aid. We can’t wait for the episode of “Cane” where Jimmy Smits is waiting by the mail box for his subsidy check from Uncle Sam.