Simon updates chamber on sugar industry in Teche area

Jim Simon, American Sugar League manager, was the guest at a luncheon Wednesday at the Forest Restaurant in Franklin hosted by the St. Mary Parish Chamber of Commerce.
Simon prefaced his presentation with an excerpt from a 1853 edition of the Harper’s Monthly Magazine which mentioned the Teche area.
He read in part, “One of the most picturesque portions of Louisiana, devoted to the cultivation of sugar cane, lies off the banks of the Mississippi River in the country of the Attakapas. This earthly paradise, a name it really deserves, lies west of the Mississippi and borders on the Gulf of Mexico... in the course of (a steamer) voyage you run across the most beautiful sheet of water known as Berwick’s Bay. You change course, thread innumerable mazes and in time find yourself upon the Teche, the beautiful and mysterious stream that flows through the Attakapas country and upon the borders of which are the most enchanting scenery and the most productive sugar farms of Louisiana.”
He said that reminder of the importance of sugar production in Louisiana should be recalled. “Today sugar provides about $105 million,” Simon said. “That’s the value of the production in St. Mary Parish. It doesn’t account for the value of the processing.”
Simon said the economic multiplier results in $293 million in impact by the sugar industry to the parish.
Planting is under way in the fields now, a little delayed by the wet weather this season. Simon said aerial application of a ripening agent is also under way, which prompts the cane to produce more sugar in the stalks before harvest.
This year’s local crop is leading the state, which on the whole is about average, Simon said, but the Teche crop is “one of the better areas of the state.” He said freezes in the upper part of the state had an impact there.
Simon said the North American Free Trade Agreement of the 1990s eliminated any hindrance of moving sugar into the United States from Mexico. “We were fortunate to have a (provision) that prohibited moving sugar until 2008” which has now expired. Mexico is now shipping as much sugar into the country as they wish.”
That resulted in a trade case against Mexico “alleging that they are dumping sugar back into the U.S. at below their cost of production… the Department of Commerce has found that they are dumping into the U.S. and duties will be placed (on those imports.)”
He said prices are down because of the Mexican sugar influx.
Simon said he’s often asked about the sugar industry, especially in an election year, and he’s recently had a long discussion with former Gov. Edwin Edwards, who is running for Congress.
He noted that there is a nationwide debate on obesity and that Americans consume 425 more calories daily today than in 1970, but were consuming 17 teaspoons of added sugar per day, now 12 teaspoons. “So how in the world did we in the sugar business get caught up in this?”
Simon said he heard a radio broadcast interview with an author who wrote a book about going without sugar for a year. He said he called in to the show and pointed out that subscribing to that diet would mean doing away with beignets, pralines and muffalettas, and renaming the Sugar Bowl.
The American Sugar Cane League commits substantial resources to its work in Washington, D.C. and in Baton Rouge among legislators.
He urged the chamber to focus its efforts in those same venues.
“During World War II, sugar was the first sugar item rationed because we relied on sugar from foreign countries,” he said.