MOORHEAD - A top U.S. Department of Agriculture official took his lumps on sugar trade policy when he stopped for a Bush-Cheney campaign visit here Wednesday.

William T. "Bill" Hawks, U.S. Department of Agriculture undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, started out reciting Bush administration accomplishments in what was billed as a "Red River Valley Roundtable." A farmer and businessman from Mississippi, Hawks then listened to statements from several farmers, mostly about the prospect of increased sugar imports in the Bush administration's free trade agreements.

Red River Valley sugar representatives last week announced they had collected 25,000 petitions asking the Bush administration not to negotiate agreements that would topple a multi-billion-dollar industry in the region.

Hawks repeated earlier statements by the Bush administration - most recently, by Vice President Dick Cheney on Aug. 6 in East Grand Forks - saying the best approach toward sugar negotiations would be in the World Trade Organization, not in bilateral and multi-lateral regional trade agreements.

"He was 100 percent right," Hawks said of Cheney. The undersecretary emphasized that sugar was taken out of a recent Australian Free Trade Agreement, Hawks noted. He downplayed the possibility that the Central American Free Trade Agreement - which included increased sugar imports - would become a template for future agreements.

"When you enter into one of those, you start out, basically, wanting both sides to have everything on the table, and in the negotiations process, you work to deal with those very sensitive issues, and obviously sugar is one of those sensitive issues," Hawks said.

He said the administration's strategy is to use bilateral agreements "to move some of those multilaterals forward."

Lower prices

But Patrick Benedict, Sabin, Minn., a former chairman of American Crystal Sugar Co., and ProGold LLC, said the Bush administration needs to understand that the region's sugar industry is different from other ag industries. Besides owning their own farms and equipment, the farmers own factories and equipment worth some $750 million.

"We're concerned about our jobs and our farms, but we're not going to be worried about the inheritance tax if we lose the sugar because inheritance isn't going to be a problem," Benedict said, flatly. "When we say we're concerned about CAFTA and agreements that do not address the sugar issue on a worldwide basis, we're very serious. We could be dead and gone as a company, and as growers, if we start picking away (at domestic sugar protections).

"This looks like a small chunk to you, but just the administration of the sugar program we have today, by setting the quotas higher, it can lower our beet payment by as much as $3 or $3.50 a ton," Benedict said.

He said lower prices coupled with lower tonnage and probably lower sugar this year is going to mean the difference between profit and loss on some farms between Moorhead and the Canadian border.

Other farmers disagreed. Bryan Boll of Gentilly, Minn., east of Crookston, said the "greatest chance of surviving" lies with the Bush administration. He said the industry can resolve its problems on trade with Bush, but not with Kerry, who voted several times to "gut the sugar program." Farmer's friend

Paul Aasness, an Elbow Lake, Minn., farmer and one of eight regional ag chairmen for Bush-Cheney '04 in the state, said sugar is important, but noted, "I'm more than just a farmer." He said military and national security issues are important, too.

Aasness said tax provisions put in place by Bush led to a construction boom on farm shops. "Everybody's busy," Aasness said, citing the "ripple effect" on the economy to the steel companies, truckers, carpenters, plumbers and heating people.

"Those people spend money in the Wal-Marts, whatever," Aasness said. "It works. You wonder why the price of fuel is high. Well, there's so much activity. People are using fuel, to get things done."

The Democrats "couldn't have a person that has been, in his career, more anti-agriculture than John Kerry," Hawks said. He cited votes to eliminate the Department of Agriculture, against ethanol, against tax cuts.

"In agriculture, there's never been a clearer distinction between candidates than we've got," Hawks said. As for Bush, he cited Ronald Reagan's adage that if somebody is "your friend 80 percent of the time, and opposed to you 20 percent of the time, they're your friend."

Chris Lisi, communications director for Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., criticized Hawks' visit because it didn't engage a wider group of sugar supporters on the topic. She said Dayton wants the administration to look out for sugar beet growers at the negotiating table "because it's an important issue, not because it's a presidential year." Pates covers agriculture for the Herald and Agweek.

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