The Enemy I Know - Sugar Beet Farmers Say Trust Is The Issue When It Comes To Bush vs. Kerry
Oct. 15, 2004
By Mikkel Pates, Herald Staff Writer

WOLVERTON, Minn. - A handful of Republican sugar beet farmers took time away from a tough harvest Thursday to return fire on sugar policy for the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Jay Nord of Wolverton, Minn., hosted an impromptu news conference Thursday at his farm shop, about 20 miles south of Moorhead. The event was designed to counter a Wednesday announcement by Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., that the 7th District congressman finally would support Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president. Peterson said Kerry had committed in writing to opposing the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which would let more sugar into the United States.

Kerry's letter

"No one's really seen the letter, and we really can't trust Kerry because he changes his position every day on most issues, let alone on the sugar industry," Nord said.

The Kerry and Peterson campaigns later provided the letter to Agweek and the Grand Forks Herald.

In the three-paragraph letter, Kerry writes: "I oppose the CAFTA agreement that President Bush negotiated. The agreement is bad for the economy, and it's bad for one of the most important sources of jobs: the sugar industry. In the Red River Valley, over 30,000 jobs depend on this industry.

"The Bush administration has consistently failed to stand up for American farmers in negotiating trade agreements. American sugar farmers suffer from unfair trading practices throughout the world. I will work vigorously to remedy this problem multilaterally through the WTO," he writes.

At the news conference, Bush supporter Bryan Boll of Gentilly, Minn., east of Crookston, accused Kerry of changing position "just to garner more votes." He said the United States left sugar out of an Australian trade pact and top USDA officials have said sugar would be best handled in the World Trade Organization. "That has been the administration's position from the beginning," Boll said.

But Jack Lacey, a Wendell, Minn., farmer and former board member for Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative of Wahpeton, N.D., said the Bush administration had "gotten the word" and had dropped sugar from an Australian pact, and has "finally come to the conclusion" that the sugar issue must be handled in the WTO.

"We hope that continues," Lacey said. "As far as Kerry is concerned, if we would go that way, I guess I'd rather work with something I know I have than the unknown." Lacey assailed Kerry's 20-year record in Congress, which includes at least four votes against the sugar program and one to eliminate the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"I think if Collin had asked him for the moon, he would have promised it," Lacey said.

Familiar enemy

Lon Kiel, a farmer from Crookston who's running for the Minnesota Legislature, described Bush's policies as the enemy he knows.

"George Bush: I know where he stands on issues," Kiel said. "Yes, we don't agree with him on the CAFTA issue, but I know exactly where he's standing. I know my enemy, I know how to fight that enemy. But if my enemy (Kerry) is bouncing around on issues, I can't get a bead on him to know where he stands. It's a trust issue for me, and a serious issue."

Andrew Dorr, formerly of Iowa, Bush-Cheney's national campaign farm and agriculture coordinator, and Dave Ladd, state farm and agriculture coordinator, set up the news conference.

Ladd is chief legislative officer for AgriBank's Farm Credit Council, a multi-state association of Farm Credit Service associations. Dorr is a son of Thomas Dorr of Marcus, Iowa, who last year failed to get Senate confirmation of his appointment as USDA's Undersecretary for Rural Development. Thomas Dorr then became a new senior adviser to USDA Secretary Ann Veneman.

Bush appointed Thomas Dorr to the undersecretary post, but the Senate would have had to confirm it for him to stay on the job after the end of 2003. Democrats including Tom Harkin of Iowa blocked his nomination because of comments he'd made about large-scale farming and ethnic homogeneity, as well as allegations about improper farm program payments.

Neither Ladd nor Dorr spoke at the news conference.

View All News