Fecso speaks at Sugar Club banquet
NEW YORK — For more than 25 years Barbara Fecso was a civil servant managing the U.S. sugar program. But on Wednesday evening, wearing an evening gown befitting the New York Sugar Club’s 76th annual black tie banquet, she delivered a message: U.S. sugar’s future is bright only if the industry reforms itself.
“The industry is trying to change. I hope they’re successful,” Fecso told the more than 800 people from 56 companies attending the banquet at Cipriani, an event space at 55 Wall Street housed in the former banking room of the National City Bank, the predecessor of Citibank.
Fecso, who retired a few months ago, was referring to the sugar industry crisis caused by a worldwide surplus. Demand is falling due to health concerns and the use of GLP-1 drugs to help people lose weight. In addition, U.S. sugar growers have faced low prices because candy, beverage and baking companies, which established relationships with foreign suppliers during shortages (even when they had to pay above-quota tariffs), are continuing those relationships.
Executives from companies that make sugar-containing products have said they appreciate the ease with which they obtain sugar from U.S. beet and cane growers, but Fecso has warned that for growers to stay in business and users to maintain their access to domestically produced sugar, the growers and users must reach agreement to work together.
Both growers and buyers respect Fecso because she managed most of the time to follow the congressional directive to keep sugar prices high enough to sustain the growers while bringing in enough imports to avoid shortages. On the rare occasions when that wasn’t possible, the growers had the right to forfeit sugar to the government and receive payment for it.
Fecso recounted her 25 years of advising a series of agriculture secretaries on sugar policy, but her speech had to be laced with humor because the Sugar Club tradition is for each table to collect money from people at the table and bet on the length of the speech. When the speech goes beyond the number of minutes on which people have bet, attendees become raucous, sometimes even booing the speaker.
No one booed Fecso, but when people in the audience started yelling after she had spoken for five minutes, she said, “This is very important. You ought to listen.” As the yelling continued, she said, “shut up” — something she had probably wanted to tell each side during her government career.
Before sitting down, she told the audience that she and Pope Leo were born in the same Chicago hospital though in different years.
“We are cut from the same cloth,” Fecso. “Neither is going to sit down until we want to.”
When Fecso said “I’m done” and sat down after speaking for 12 minutes and four seconds, the audience roared with laughter and applause. As she stepped from the dais to the ballroom floor, growers, buyers and traders gathered around to thank her for her service and seek her wisdom about the future.
