Big Sugar and the Political Economy of US Agricultural Policy

Publication Date: April 2005

Publisher: Center for Global Development; Center for Global Development

Author(s): Kimberly A. Elliott; Kimberly A. Elliott

Research Area: Agriculture, forestry and fishing

Type:

Abstract:

Sugar is a prototypical case of a policy that favors the few at the expense of the many. Thanks to a government policy that supports prices by sharply restricting imports, a small number of American sugar cane and beet growers are enriched at the expense of US consumers and of more efficient foreign growers, most of whom are in poorer developing countries.