In a message dated 11/27/98 7:38:45 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
 
> When I buy sugar, which is not very often, I pay the equivalent of 30 us
>  dollars per 100 pounds.
 
    So what are you complaining about, Chris?  I wish I could buy sugar at
that price here on the right coast. Our sources run $34-35, plus trucking.
We've about given up using sugar.
 
    The old honey loan program gave a modest subsidy, that helped us compete
with highly subsidized Chinese honey. Emperor Sleaze eliminated it as an
example of the elimination of wasteful government programs. Over the next five
years, he saved enough to pay for the cost of his
coronat.......um......inauguration.
 
    Under the old program, you put the honey under loan at one price, and
within nine months could "buyback" at a slightly lower price, and interest
would be forgiven also. Since the buyback rate tended to set the market rate,
a lot of beekeepers just turned the honey over to the gummit, rather that do
all the work of marketing it. I used the program for a couple years, bought
back some to pack, and let the rest go. For me, the red tape wasn't worth it.
I certainly have no interest in using the current program.
 
    There was a lot of fraud in the program too. I know of one packer who
contracted to pack this honey which sat in gummit warehouses. He got drums of
clover and black locust honey in, and purple loosestrife (looks like Pennzoil
and doesn't taste much better) went back out in the jars. This bakers grade
honey, packed as table grade, was given to schools and po' folks, and wiped
out a generation of honey consumers. A neighbor brought me over a jar of the
gummit honey one time. After a taste, I suggested she throw it out, and I gave
her a jar of REAL honey.
 
    My customers are mostly WWII generation, who learned to use honey when
sugar was rationed, and young, health conscious yuppies. There are few
customers in the middle generation. They'll tell you they don't like honey.
But they do, if you give them a taste.....
 
    So I agree that most gummit programs offer more drawbacks than advantage.
I think that most beekeepers participated in the old honey loan program
because it was the only game in town, and many will likely participate in the
new one out of desperation.
 
    It is said that farmers are the first to feel hard times coming, and the
farmers and beekeepers I know are mighty discouraged right now. The public has
the illusion of prosperity, but we are being led into moral and fiscal
bankruptcy, with the blind leading the blind.
 
[log in to unmask]     Dave Green  Hemingway, SC  USA
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