Number: 1990-23
WHEREAS, agricultural programs that distort the free market system can have serious environmental impacts; and
WHEREAS, the sugar import quotas stimulate sugar production on and adjacent to environmentally sensitive lands; and
WHEREAS, the Council of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), an international trade organization to which the United States is bound by treaty, ruled that the U.S. sugar import restrictions violate international trade agreements and ordered that such restrictions be ended or changed to conform to GATT rules; and
WHEREAS, agricultural practices associated with sugar cane production on 450,000 acres in the Everglades Agricultural Area are the major cause of environmental damage to large areas of the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, Everglades National Park and state wildlife management areas; and
WHEREAS, drainage of marsh lands in the south Florida Everglades exposes organic soils to oxidative loss with concomitant release of large quantities of nitrogen and phosphorus into drainage water leading to eutrophication of the Everglades ecosystem; and
WHEREAS, sugar cane producers consistently have refused to provide on-site treatment for their polluted drainage water, claiming a right to discharge waters that fail to meet state water quality standards onto publicly-owned lands; and
WHEREAS, the Everglades Agricultural Area sugar producers are protected from competition and subsidized by consumers through import quotas, and are also provided with free irrigation water from a federal project, and provided with a publicly- constructed and -operated pumped drainage system below cost;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation in annual meeting assembled March 15-18, 1990, in Denver, Colorado, requests that the states require farmers to implement agricultural practices necessary to meet water quality standards for runoff; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation urges the Secretary of Agriculture to adjust U.S. sugar import quotas to conform with GATT; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation recommends that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service be authorized and directed, consistent with their recently adopted Wetlands Habitat Priority Conservation Plan, to purchase sugar cane production land within the Everglades Agricultural Area and manage the land for fish, wildlife and water quality protection.