Restructuring the Australian sugar industry: A question of policy or a questionable policy?

According to Le Heron "One of the big policy issues in the 1990s in industrialised nations centres on the extent and nature of public policy constraints on economic and social activities" (1993, p. 3). Sugar is, and always has been, a highly politicised commodity and government policy has been largely responsible for shaping its trajectory, both nationally and internationally. However, at the beginning of the twenty first century traditional practices do not appear to be meeting the challenges posed by an increasingly globalised economy. A new policy framework is required (Abbott, 1990, p. 318). This chapter discusses the emergence of globalisation and some of the impacts it is having on agriculture in general, and sugar in particular. In so doing, it focuses on some ideas of globalisation as proposed by Le Heron (1993) and McMichael (1996). Attention is then turned to the notion of the "level playing field" prior to a discussion of the kinds of problems currently facing the sugar industry and how Australian industry policy is changing in order to contend with such difficulties. The final section of the chapter speculates about some of the possible consequences of what is possibly the most significant restructuring of the Australian sugar industry since the beginning of the twentieth century.