Florida's sugar barons grow fat on subsidies, diabetes and Everglades destruction

Big Sugar is the new Big Tobacco, writes Alan Farago - lethal to human health, wreaking environmental devastation, gouging huge public subsidies, and with the political clout to stop First Lady Michelle Obama from breathing a word against it. Only an alliance of 'green', health and taxpayer campaigners can kill the beast.

'Drastic Measures', in the Financial Timesdetails a dramatic shift in health care priorities and the effect of putting the first significant, coordinated pressure on sugar consumption: 

" ... governments are waking up to the rising costs of illnesses such as diabetes and cancer that have increased alongside obesity. 'The discussion of sugar linked to dietary concerns has been has been gathering momentum,' says Stefano Natella of Credit Suisse. 'The related global healthcare costs are at an all-time high-the bill is $500 billion or over 10 percent of global healthcare spending - as are obesity and diabetes levels.' "

The way that smoking leads to tobacco farmers, the path to the current health care crisis begins with sugar producers. In the United States, the obesity and diabetes epidemic point to Florida where sugar billionaires tied massive subsidies in the Farm Bill to subsidies for corn fructose.

Health impacts - still undecided on how to respond

When earlier this year the World Health Organization reduced the recommended daily sugar intake by half, to the equivalent of six teaspoons of sugar a day, billionaire sugar barons in West Palm Beach and Coral Gables paid closest attention.

Florida sugar producers have a global reach - with operations proliferating in low-cost labor nations like the Dominican Republic, but their intense focus is the Florida proving ground where a sophisticated mobilization of economic, social, and political resources maintains the aura of Big Sugar as good corporate citizen.

Big Sugar is quick to repel environmental and community indignation in Florida - as well as decades of lawsuits over its pollution of the Everglades - but it hasn't decided what direction to take with respect to emerging science on the crisis triggered by its products.

While Republican members of Congress rant and rave about the costs of the Affordable Health Care Act, none complain about the toll on consumers' health through excess consumption of sugar. Thirty years ago, 1 in 20 kids were obese. Today, it's 1 in 5.

The Institute for Responsible Nutrition notes that 77% of grocery store items contain added sugar; "Food companies know that the more sugar they add, the more people buy." In Great Britain, policy makers are considering a sugar tax.

Read more: http://www.theecologist.org

Graham