The Department of Agriculture's peanut program pays peanut farmers twice market rates for producing a government-set poundage quota and also restricts peanut imports.
Production quotas drive up domestic prices and promote pesticide-heavy peanut production.
This bill is awaiting action. The federal sugar program implements price supports and non-recourse loans for domestic sugar producers, and places severe restrictions on sugar imports. In 1999, however, the Department of Agriculture continued to provide non-recourse loans to sugar producers even though import levels dropped to 1.25 million tons. The sugar program encourages artificially high domestic sugar prices and the overproduction of sugar cane on marginal land, increasing habitat loss and destruction of the Florida Everglades. The amendment was defeated 66 to 33.