Experience demonstrated that at times high tariffs had the effect of arbitrarily increasing the price of sugar to consumers in the United States. and during other periods when sugar was most needed such barriers adversely affected the normal flow of adequate supply from foreign sources. At the same time. the price that the farmer and the sugar mill received was guided solely by the fluctuation of the world market in sugar. After struggling for more than a century with. the tariff system. sometimes too high. sometimes too low. depending upon the administration in power and world conditions beyond our control. a quota system was written into law in the first Sugar Act of 1934. later revised and amended in the Sugar Acts of 1937 and 1948. Under the quota system. devised by the Sugar Acts. the Secretary of Agriculture is required in December of each year. based on available statistics and past performances. to estimate the quantity of sugar that will be consumed during the succeeding year in Continental United States. Then. with this estimate as a starting point. the Sugar Act provides a specific formula whereby the sugar producing areas are respectively given a quota or a fair share of the quantity of the sugar they can produce and supply to meet our requirements. The act provides for two types of quotas. namely: fixed quotas and variable qoutas.
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quota system