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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

What somebody really needs to do is to take the fight to the US Government, to eradicate the sugar tariff system which keeps the US stuck eating liquefied corn (bleech) while the rest of the world munches down on delicious sugar from real sugar cane.

Alternatively, wait for global warming to convert Texas into a prime sugarcane-growing region.

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I hope your Texas remark is a joke I'm just not getting because of the textual medium. The US is the 10th largest producer of sugar and Texas is one of four US states known for growing sugar cane.

Well, I'm just a Canadian looking in, but I thought a major part of the problem was that the corn subsidies made HCFS artificially inexpensive. If a hypothetical global warming scenario sets in where the corn and wheat moves north of the border into the arctic tundra, and the US jumps to a top 3 sugar producer, the tariffs and subsidies would certainly change.

It may be top ten, but it's only got 5% of the number one producer (Brazil) and less than half of relatively tiny countries like Thailand. A small part of Texas/Louisiana is suitable for sugar cane production, but basically the US climate is pretty sucky for sugar -- it's one of very few major crops that the US just can't produce in quantities that satisfy its needs. (At least, not without resorting to using corn for sweetening purposes.)

I just chose Texas because it's big, and likely to be on the front lines of an expanded subtropical climate in the US. The image of vast canefields stretching from Lubbock to Corpus Christi amuses me.

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