Sugarbeet growers lobby changes in Trump-signed sugar bill

By Grace Kim

The American Sugarbeet Growers Association listed $200,000 in lobbying on sugar provisions in an amended third-quarter report signed Nov. 5. The amount matched the prior quarter, exceeded the $130,000 recorded in the third quarter of 2025 by $70,000, and remained entirely in-house, with no outside firm listed in any reporting period.

The filing named Luther Markwart, senior adviser, and Zachary Clark, CEO and executive vice president, as its two lobbyists. Across complete quarters, in-house spending rose from 2025 into 2026 and then held level for two quarters; the team did not change.

What does the 2025 sugar law change?

President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4, 2025. The act raises loan rates for sugarcane and beet sugar processors for crop years 2025 through 2031 and gives beet processors priority when allotments are adjusted upward.

Beet processors’ stronger position in an upward allotment adjustment could affect the balance between beet and cane sugar supply. Higher loan rates can change processor financing costs, but the source provides no rate, term or cost estimate and no measure of pass-through to contracted beet prices, sugar basis or grower margins.

American Sugar Alliance urged Congress to pass the act, citing “necessary updates” to sugar policy. The American Farm Bureau Federation backed its agricultural provisions as strengthening the farm safety net. The Congressional Research Service reported that the act increases premium subsidies and expands crop-insurance coverage options.

Those changes can affect growers’ premium burden and the range of production risks they can insure, but no dollar amount or farm-level estimate accompanies them. The source includes no acreage, yield, harvested result or sugar price.

Financing and crop-risk terms changed, but the source does not quantify the effect on farm margins.

How do import quotas affect growers?

The filing also identifies the U.S. sugar program’s tariff-rate quota and high-tier sugar entries. A tariff-rate quota lets a set volume of imports enter at a lower duty. Those rules determine a portion of import competition and can influence domestic sugar supply, basis and processor economics.

USTR announced fiscal 2026 quota allocations for raw cane, refined and specialty sugar in August 2025. On July 14, 2025, USDA said it would allow no additional specialty-sugar imports, arguing that imports had more than doubled over 20 years and U.S. producers had lost 15 percent of the domestic market.

The filing provides no import series or market baseline to test those claims. The Organic Trade Association opposed USDA’s decision. Using import data and its own calculations, the association said the decision would add more than $85 million in tariffs on organic sugar imports.

The $85 million figure is an association estimate, not a USDA forecast or a measure of grower costs.

Quota policy sets the import terms, but no source data quantify the resulting change in sugar prices or beet margins.

What action did Congress request?

On May 21, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) co-led a letter urging USTR to act on foreign sugar imports. He cited the expired Tier 2 tariff and 700 percent growth in out-of-quota imports.

Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.-7) signed a separate bicameral letter backing a USTR Section 301 investigation of foreign sugar trade practices. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho-2) and Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, both from Idaho, signed the same letter. The American Sugarbeet Growers Association appears among the endorsers.

The Section 301 request remains pending in the record, with no USTR decision or scheduled action date.

Congress has pressed for import action, but the outcome remains open.

What could chlorpyrifos change for crop protection?

On crop protection, Fischbach led a July 24 letter urging EPA to restore access to the insecticide chlorpyrifos. The release lists the American Sugarbeet Growers Association among organizations giving “strong backing.”

Restored access could affect insecticide availability and input costs for growers, but the source provides no product price, treated-acreage or yield figure. EPA also has no scheduled date for a response.

Chlorpyrifos remains a grower cost issue awaiting an agency decision.

What should growers watch next?

Two actions will test the group’s lobbying: whether USTR acts on the Section 301 request and whether EPA responds to the chlorpyrifos letter. Neither has a scheduled date in the record.

The spending pattern shows a larger in-house effort than a year earlier, followed by two flat quarters and an unchanged lobbying team. Because the source supplies no new processor-loan rate, sugar basis, acreage, yield or margin series, policy movement is the only near-term measurable result.

The next checkpoints are USTR action on trade and EPA action on chlorpyrifos; until then, the source supports no revised estimate of sugarbeet costs, basis or margins.