John Kerry has voted against sugar subsidies, but may have redeemed himself with beet farmers with his call to renegotiate parts of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. The American sugar industry claims CAFTA opens farmers up to unfair competition from foreign sugar.

George W. Bush signed the 2002 farm bill, which included sugar subsidies -- but supports CAFTA. So what's a sugar beet farmer to do?

Terry Vipond, a 53-year-old sugar beet farmer from Grant County, voted for Bush four years ago, figuring Al Gore was too radical an environmentalist. This year, he said, he's likely to vote for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, figuring Bush is too radical a free trader.

He's unimpressed with CAFTA, which would reduce trade tariffs between the United States and the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

"It may help them, but I don't see how it helps us," said Vipond, who farms with his four brothers and two nephews.

"It's obviously important to me -- it's my livelihood," said Jim Horvath, president of American Crystal Sugar Co. in Moorhead. In 2000, Horvath said, he gave $2,000 to help get Bush elected, but he hasn't written any checks to the president's campaign this year. He says he's undecided about who he'll ultimately support.

Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said CAFTA now ranks as the biggest issue in his conservative-leaning 7th District, where Minnesota sugar beet farmers are concentrated. He said Bush could lose the district because of anger over Bush's policies on trade, the economy and the war in Iraq. That would be a reversal from 2000, when Bush lost the state but carried the rural Seventh District by nearly 15 percentage points, his biggest margin of victory in a Minnesota congressional district.

"I've had a lot of people come up and tell me they voted for him last time and they're not going to vote for him this time," Peterson said.

"And I haven't had one single person come up to me and say, 'I voted for Al Gore and this time I'm voting for George Bush."'

Bush supporters are trying to prevent defections by pointing out that Kerry has cast votes against the sugar industry. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., noted that in 1999 and 2000 Kerry voted to end the federal sugar program.

"John Kerry has a lousy record on sugar. ... This Boston Brahmin is no champion of Midwest agriculture," Coleman said.

Coleman, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said the Senate won't vote on the pact until it's changed to protect sugar growers. Like Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., he said he would vote against CAFTA if a vote were held today.

Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and a supporter of CAFTA, said that the pact would help the American economy and that "American farmers can compete with farmers from anyplace, including Central America."

"We need to open up markets, wherever they exist," he said.

With the election up for grabs in Minnesota, Peterson is hoping Kerry will travel to the 7th District to campaign on the issue. He said he'll accept Kerry's invitation to campaign with him if the senator pledges to renegotiate CAFTA and keep sugar out of the pact. "We're going to keep the pressure on him," Peterson said.

Jennifer Porter Gore, a Kerry spokeswoman for Minnesota, said the campaign knows of Peterson's request but that Kerry's stance is clear. "He's against CAFTA in general -- so that means the whole treaty," she said.

She said Kerry wants to renegotiate "CAFTA in general and sugar in particular" to make sure Central America would not have an unfair competitive advantage.

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