U.S. Sugar to end operations, sell land to state (FL)

[Scurrilous]

Source: Miami Herald

<snip>

"The nation's largest producer of cane sugar is set to go out of business in a deal to sell its land to the state of Florida for Everglades restoration.

Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Sugar Corp. representatives announced Tuesday the state was working on a deal to buy U.S. Sugar's 187,000 acres, nearly 300 square miles, in the Everglades south of Lake Okeechobee. The potential deal calls for the state to pay about $1.7 billion dollars for the land.

Negotiations are still ongoing, but officials hope to sign an agreement by September. Once the deal is in place, U.S. Sugar would be allowed to farm the land for six more years before shuttering its business."

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/581268.html

[polichick]

1. Great news - I've despised U.S. Sugar for years...

Florida is my home state and it was a great joy to meet Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the savior of the Everglades, when she published her Florida short stories. She was an amazing woman!

[harmonicon]

2. oh no!!! they're commies!!!

That evil Hugo Chavez must have put them up to this. Re-appropriating industrial land for purposes of environmental conservation. Bastards.

[greiner3]

3. Doesn't pass the smell test;

crist has plans for that land and it isn't for turning it back to a swamp.

[gulfbreeze]

7. You are absolutely on target!!!!

You better believe it's smoke and mirrors. He's setting the stage for something....................

[Oregone]

9. I bet he is going to sell small parcels cheaply to independent, poor sugar farmers with 0% loans

</sarcasm>

[cobalt1999]

4. Some good news today! Thanks for posting it. n/t

[flashl]

5. Last I heard, Florida had budget shortfall, is cutting 'services' across the board, laying off

workers, etc. Where will the governor find the money to buy U.S. Sugar's land?

[xxqqqzme]

6. if it is anything like California - from developers!

[boomerbust]

8. For Oil

They are taking this land off of the sugar based ethanol grid.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Earlier this year: "Ex-workers sue U.S. Sugar"

Ex-workers sue U.S. Sugar
The suit claims the company hid a buyout offer rejection from employee stockholders.
By SCOTT BARANCIK, Times Staff Writer
Published February 1, 2008



AP Photo

U.S. Sugar CEO Bob Buker said the company - whose assets also
include a railroad, mine, citrus factory and sugar factory -
is worth roughly $2.5-billion.


U.S. Sugar Corp. rejected a $575-million buyout offer and kept it secret from employee shareholders because a sale didn't serve the founding family's personal interests, a federal lawsuit filed Thursday in West Palm Beach claims.

Three former U.S. Sugar workers who earned shares under the company's employee retirement plan say chairman William S. White spurned a buyout offer in 2005 and again in 2007 even though it represented a 50 percent premium over the stock's cash-redemption value. White allegedly wanted to ensure that founder Charles Stewart Mott's heirs - including White's own wife - kept control of the privately held Clewiston firm, which owns nearly 200,000 acres of sugar cane and citrus land across Florida.

"The most shocking thing about this case is that an extremely wealthy group - Claire Mott and her husband, William White - would essentially cheat the workers of U.S. Sugar," said Coral Gables lawyer Roberto "Bob" Martinez, whose clients are seeking $150-million in addition to punitive damages.

While the employee retirement plan is U.S. Sugar's largest shareholder with a 38 percent stake, it has no representative on the company's board of directors. The plan's members have only two ways to redeem their stock: by selling it back to the company or as part of a corporate acquisition.

U.S. Sugar CEO Bob Buker scoffed at the lawsuit's claims Thursday. In an interview from Brazil, he said the company - whose assets also include a railroad, mine, citrus factory and sugar factory - is worth roughly $2.5-billion. That's more than four times what agriculture baron Gaylon M. Lawrence Sr. and his son offered for U.S. Sugar, a figure Buker said was too low to even bother running by the company's shareholders. "If somebody offers you $100 for your house, you just walk away," he said.

More:
http://www.sptimes.com/2008/02/01/Business/Ex_workers_sue_US_Sug.shtml

[tkmorris]

11. $9000+ an acre?

That's rather a lot for that land, especially purchased all at once. I wonder if it is related to this story: http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/31/State/Crist_mission__enlarg.shtml (Recent trip to Brazil, looking into converting sugar plantations to ethanol production).

[seafan]

14. East Timor's gov't under fire for land giveaway for sugar plantation/ethanol plan

GTLeste Biotech is a little-known Indonesian company.

Massive East Timor land-for-biofuel plan raises hackles, June 24, 2008

Outrage over impoverished nation's land giveaway, June 25, 2008

EAST Timor's Government is under fire over its plans to turn more than a sixth of the country's arable land over to a $US100 million ($105 million) foreign-funded ethanol project.

The Fretilin opposition said a memorandum on an agreement with GTLeste Biotech for a 100,000ha sugar plantation and ethanol plant was a "land giveaway".

The deal with the little-known Indonesian company would guarantee at least $US100 million investment, in return for giving GTLeste a 50-year lease over "unproductive land", with an option for another 50 years.

The Government said it would be a major source of foreign money and could generate more than 2000 jobs.

But opposition agriculture spokesman Estanislau da Silva said the plan was made with little public consultation and could threaten food production in the impoverished and largely agrarian country.

"They say they are going to plant sugarcane on unproductive land. Where in the world can you plant sugarcane on unproductive land?" he said.

"The intention itself is very suspicious and goes against what we are doing in terms of development and increasing food production and reliance.

"Two thousand jobs means nothing to me when you give away 100,000 hectares."

.....

So, I wonder what Big Sugar's plan is now... Jeb Bush is BIG on ethanol production in Brazil. He couldn't care less about seizing lands from residents or causing price increases in the food supply.

For Jeb, it's about making money.

[JBear]

12. What a bunch of corporate welfare!

So why is the state willing to pay $9000 per acre for land that will A) be farmed another 6 years by its current owner and B) will be underwater within the next 10 years and totally useless to the corporation that owns it now? This just reeks of corporate welfare to me. Glad it is not MY tax dollars at work!

:popcorn:

[Judi Lynn]

13. It was US taxpayers' tax dollars, however, which sponsored the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

when they cleared and built up that land originally so that the sugar growers would have a nice place to pollute!

I'll bet it took a fortune to turn swampland into land where the sugar barons could grow their massively subsidized product. The enormous subsidy drives the cost of sugar up in every product which uses it, and there's an astonishing number of food products which contain sugar.

The Great Sugar Shaft
by James Bovard, April 1998

~snip~
Since 1980, the sugar program has cost consumers and taxpayers the equivalent of more than $3 million for each American sugar grower. Some people win the lottery; other people grow sugar. Congressmen justify the sugar program as protecting Americans from the "roller-coaster of international sugar prices," as Rep. Byron Dorgan (D.-N.D.) declared. Unfortunately, Congress protects consumers from the roller-coaster by pegging American sugar prices on a level with the Goodyear blimp floating far above the amusement park. U.S. sugar prices have been as high as or higher than world prices for 44 of the last 45 years.

Sugar sold for 21 cents a pound in the United States when the world sugar price was less than 3 cents a pound. Each 1-cent increase in the price of sugar adds between $250 million and $300 million to consumers' food bills. A Commerce Department study estimated that the sugar program was costing American consumers more than $3 billion a year.

Congress, in a moment of economic sobriety, abolished sugar quotas in June 1974. But, on May 5, 1982, President Reagan reimposed import quotas. The quotas sought to create an artificial shortage of sugar that would drive up U.S. prices and force consumers to unknowingly support American sugar growers. And by keeping the subsidies covert and off-budget, quotas did not interfere with Reagan's bragging about how he was cutting wasteful government spending.

.....

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0498d.asp

[Judi Lynn]

15. Deal too good for U.S. Sugar

Deal too good for U.S. Sugar
The sweet part of the deal for U.S. Sugar Corp. to sell its holdings rests with the price and the ability to maintain its operations for six years essentially rent free.
Posted on Wed, Jun. 25, 2008

By JANE BUSSEY AND SCOTT HIAASEN
[e-mail]
For U.S. Sugar Corp., the deal with the state of Florida to relinquish an 80-year-old business and give up the world's largest sugar mill was too sweet to rebuff.

When the sale of U.S. Sugar's holdings to the South Florida Water Management District closes in November, the sugar and citrus company will pocket $1.75 billion to pay down debt and other obligations and to pay out about $700 million to shareholders.

But equally important, the company will also be able to operate on a rent-free basis for an estimated six years.

As part of an Everglades restoration plan, the Clewiston-headquartered company will sell 187,000 acres of land to the water management district.

Included in the sale are: a newly completed sugar mill, the largest in the world; the company's Southern Gardens Citrus Processing Plant, the largest bulk citrus processor in the United States; and railroads and other buildings.

Property taxes will go away also.

When the sale is complete, the land will be off the tax rolls. Then the Water Management District will begin making payments to the counties with the most significant tax impact, to ease the loss of tax revenue, said Randy Smith, a district spokesman. If the price was right, the time was right, too.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/581850.html

[gristy]

16. Florida Buying Big Sugar Tract for Everglades

Source: NY Times

LOXAHATCHEE, Fla. — The dream of a restored Everglades, with water flowing from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, moved a giant step closer to reality on Tuesday when the nation’s largest sugarcane producer agreed to sell all of its assets to the state and go out of business.

Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, with Robert H Buker Jr., the chief of U.S. Sugar, held up an agreement struck between the state and the sugar producer.

Under the proposed deal, Florida will pay $1.75 billion for United States Sugar, which would have six years to continue farming before turning over 187,000 acres north of Everglades National Park, along with two sugar refineries, 200 miles of railroad and other assets.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/us/25everglades.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

---

This is terrific. Kind of like privatization in reverse!

[angrycarpenter]

17. Iv'e been to these places

Emptiness. Nothing for many miles but cane. When they burn-off the sugar cane there is a dirty brown cloud that darkens the sun even near the coast. Some of the poorest people I have ever seen work in those fields. The sugar industry has so many downsides that I am delighted to hear that some of it is coming back to nature.

[angrycarpenter]

20. Also, look at this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fanjul_Brothers

This is what growing sugar is all about.

[MasonJar]

18. Good news in Florida, finally. Crist is allegedly somewhat of an environmentalist.

Can anyone imagine Jeb Bush doing something like this? Thought not!

[Coexist]

19. was this the trade-off for allowing drilling off the coast?

[bluesmail]

21. If a deal involves BigCorp in Texas or Florida, I'd be wary.

[NBachers]

22. Does this mean that

Jimmy Smits and Rita Moreno won't be back on TV next season?

[FlaGranny]

23. Some very poor people in that area.

I wonder where they will work now and where they will live. I think many of them live in buildings owned by the sugar company, but I'm not certain about that. I also wonder what will happen to Pahokee and South Bay. It will be good for the Everglades, not so good for the trade deficit because it will mean importing a whole lot more sugar.

[dipsydoodle]

24. Here's the BBC News link

However, people in the sugar cane industry has expressed grave concerns over what the deal will mean to them: US Sugar Corp is America's largest producer of sugar cane, and cheap imports have already led to the closure of dozens of mills.

"This is our life, our livelihood," Ardis Hammock, one of the owners of the sugar cane-growing Frierson Farm, told the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7472577.stm

All well and good if the subsidies they receive from your tax money were only used to help you compete at home. Unfortunately they are also used to help the people of other nations starve by maintaining their suger at a low price too. An effective stop to these antics has already been directed toward your cotton industry :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4672786.stm

[Rebellious Republican]

25. I wonder what the republicans have up their sleeve this time...........

Here is a little trip down memory lane, most people did not realise or still do not realise that the whole Everglades restoration thing was a product of Jeb Bush. And for a reason, Jeb and friends thought they could still Florida's water rights and make a bundle of cash selling it back to Floridians. As I recall seeing the news sometime after Enron went bust, all of a sudden Jeb suddenly lost interest in restoring the Everglades, funny how that worked. he started opposing it because of the cost and tried blocking it. By that time it was to late, he had already sunk a lot of time, money and propaganda into it. Here are some snippets from articles, be very aware of what may actually be taking place.

snip>While Jeb Bush was running for Florida's governor in the summer of 1998, Enron Corp., a fast-growing Houston energy broker, was diversifying into a potentially lucrative new field - privatization of water supplies.

Even as Bush's secretary for the Department of Environmental Protection was settling into his office in February 1999, top executives of Enron's new water venture, Azurix Corp., were seeking audiences with the new governor and his DEP chief David Struhs.

Although Bush generally kept his distance from Azurix, his man Struhs stood on the sidelines like a cheerleader throughout Enron-Azurix's unsuccessful two-year attempt to privatize Florida's water market.

Struhs promoted two ideas near and dear to Azurix: auctioning off blocks of water to the highest bidder, and boosting underground water and storing it there for later withdrawal, a process called aquifer storage and recovery, or ASR.

By May 2001, as Enron was getting ready to junk Azurix and sell it for its parts, Struhs cooled on ASR, citing concerns by environmentalists and legislators.

Enron's attempt to duplicate its success in energy brokerage with a free-market approach to water resulted in $900 million in Azurix debt - a factor in Enron's decision to seek protection from creditors in bankruptcy court.

Azurix's Florida proposals died with the dismantling of the company during 2001 - for which Jeb Bush and the people of Florida might want to thank their lucky stars.

Had Enron and its billion-dollar water baby Azurix succeeded in landing major Florida contracts, taxpayers might now be deeper in the cross-currents of the unfolding Enron bankruptcy and potential fraud case.<snip
http://www.afn.org/~iguana/archives/2002_03/20020314.html


snip>In 1999, Enron subsidiary Azurix proposed a scheme under which it would help pay for Everglades restoration in exchange for water rights. Approximately two weeks after Enron's plan was proposed, you appointed James Garner III, an Azurix lobbyist, to the Governor's Commission for the Everglades;<snip
http://www.counterpunch.org/claybrookjeb.html

:think:

[whyverne]

27. We've been shafted on sugar for years

Big Sugar is another example of the Republicans being all for free trade except for their buddies. Reagan slapped on sugar import quotas that have cost the American public millions of dollars. Many candy makers went out of business or moved to Canada because of our artificially high prices on sugar. Why is corn syrup in everything? The high cost of sugar. The countries just south of us can do sugar dirt cheap.
At least something in our grocery cart should go down in price now.
Google (Reagan + sugar) for a lot of articles on this corporate welfare.

[Judi Lynn]

26. Florida megadeal aims to restore fabled wetlands, close US Sugar

Florida megadeal aims to restore fabled wetlands, close US Sugar
3 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Florida has reached a tentative 1.75-billion-dollar deal to buy the largest US sugar producer and turn its vast swaths of farmland into reservoirs to protect the fabled Everglades wetlands, US media reported Wednesday.

"The plan, described by Governor Charlie Crist as the largest conservation purchase in Florida's history, envisions restoring some of the natural flow of water to the Everglades from Lake Okeechobee," The Washington Post reported. The amount of land involved is some 187,000 acres (75,678 hectares).

Crist has been named as a potential running mate for Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

The announcement by Crist Tuesday capped months of secret negotiations with US Sugar. He called the deal as "monumental" in scope.

Spanning 1.5 million acres, the Everglades is the third-largest national park in the lower 48 US states, after Death Valley and Yellowstone.

More:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3EGRbvbHHrSNr3VNkIDvUnKFH6w