USDA Considers Price-Hiking Sugar Bailout

Policy at its best

U.S. sugar producers are poised to get a sweet deal.

The USDA is considering buying 400,000 tons of sugar in an aim to limit supply and boost prices so that sugar producers can pay back government loans that they're in danger of defaulting on, the Wall Street Journal reports. The move would be an exercise of an untested provision inserted in the 2008 farm bill called the Feedstock Flexibility Program, which allows the USDA to intervene in the market to raise prices.

While the artificial price boost would benefit companies that manufacture sugar, the losers may be the makers of your favorite candies—like Mars, Hershey and Nestle—and that may mean higher candy prices.