The U.S. Congress and the Bush administration have struggled to find common ground on the passage of a proposed farm bill and Louisiana sugar cane farmers have anxiously awaited an outcome.

Progress was made recently with a House and Senate passage of HR 2419, the Farm, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008. The bill was vetoed Wednesday by President Bush and the House promptly responded by overriding the veto later in the day. However, according to the office of U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, there was a technical mistake when an enrollment clerk sent the bill to the president accidentally omitting 34 pages of trade proposal.

Melancon’s office said the Senate decided to override the veto regardless of the technical error and will address the omitted portion of the bill on a separate occasion.

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The proposed 2008 Farm Bill is now law and sugar cane farmers no longer have to wait for a clearer picture of what the future holds.

Melancon said the new farm bill includes the first sugar loan rate increase in nearly 25 years and creates a sucrose-ethanol program to move surplus sugar into the ethanol sector, a program which would only be used when imports oversupply the domestic market.

Frank Minvielle, a Loreauville sugar cane farmer and president of Cajun Sugar Co-op, said the proposed farm bill is better then nothing but worries that it might be too little too late.

Jim Simon of New Iberia, director of the American Sugar Cane League, said Louisiana sugar cane farmers haven’t seen an increase in crop prices since the mid-1980s.

“We have struggled with the same price and been able to maintain profitability so far,” Simon said. “Currently, with skyrocketing input costs, we will be unable to maintain profitability at current prices and the new farm bill allows for loan rate increases which will slightly increase prices in addition to a sucrose to ethanol program which will provide the USDA a new tool to remove sugar surplus from the U.S. sugar market helping them to balance the market and maintain acceptable prices to Louisiana sugar cane farmers.”

The farm bill is important to a sensitive crop like sugar, said Mike Salassi, LSU professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics.

“The production costs have risen dramatically in the last couple of years and unlike other crops, the price of sugar has not risen,” he said. “The sugar producers in the state have faced some challenging times.”

Billy Patout of M.A. Patout and Son said the next couple of years will be both difficult and interesting.

“Over the past 12 months the cost of fuel, fertilizer and chemicals have doubled,” Patout said. “The sugar industry will change and adjust but a huge price will be paid and some will not survive.”