CHICAGO—Recession or not, people will still celebrate Christmas, Halloween, Easter and Valentine's Day, which is why candy companies make money in good times and in bad, says the National Confectioners Association (NCA).

In fact, NCA unveiled at its annual All Candy Expo, held May 19-21, that the industry actually posted a 3.7 percent sales gain in the past year despite the worst economy since the Great Depression.

This comes just one year after NCA proudly proclaimed confectionery to be "a high profit category" where "[m]argins average more than 35%."

Unfortunately for the men and women who grow the sugar that makes these candy profits possible, things aren't so rosy. They see barely one penny out of a 90-cent chocolate bar and sugar prices are lower today than they were when Jimmy Carter sat in the Oval Office.

Times have gotten so difficult on sugar farms as of late, that one Louisiana banker recently penned an article pointing out the unfair divide between high-flying candy companies and cane farms teetering on bankruptcy.

"Seeing neighbors go under is never easy, but it's even more difficult when you're reading headlines about good times on the other side of the equation," wrote Dean Martin, assistant vice president of First South Farm Credit.

"For example, we've recently seen reports about Hershey's posting a 20 percent increase in profit during the first quarter," he wrote. "I don't fault Hershey's or any other food manufacturer for turning a profit—after all that's why people go into business. But driving suppliers into the ground to pad profits is bad business."

Martin was referring to a current lobbying efforts by Hershey's and other industrial sugar users-such as Kraft, which just posted a 10 percent Q1 revenue increase-to flood the U.S. sugar market with unneeded imports in order to lower ingredient costs.

But sugar farmers like Gary Gravois from Napoleopnville, La. say sugar prices are already too low and such a spike in subsidized imports would drive U.S. farmers out of business and end up costing taxpayers money—U.S. sugar policy has operated for decades at no taxpayer cost.

"Recent hurricanes, combined with low sugar prices and high input costs, have created challenges in the sugar business unlike any we've seen before," he explained. "We can't take another price freefall."

Raw sugar prices have plummeted since last summer and are hovering at levels that are below cane farmers' breakeven point.

According to a new study conducted by Louisiana State University, cane farmers in the state are losing on average $70 an acre after paying land rents and production costs.

Farmers would need to receive 24 cents per pound for sugar to break even, LSU estimates, and that assumes good yields. Farms still suffering lingering effects from past hurricanes could see breakeven prices closer to 28 cents. Current raw sugar prices are below 22 cents.

Gravois went to Washington, DC, in early May with other Louisiana growers to take his case to Congress and USDA officials. The message was simple: Low sugar prices prove that candy companies have more than enough sugar.

The growers' message was bolstered by a study of worldwide sugar prices in 2008 that came out just weeks after their visit.

U.S. food manufacturers pay less for sugar than their European counterparts and other companies in the developed world, according to the study by Oxford, England-based LMC International.

That same study also showed that Americans spend just 0.08 percent of their paychecks on sugar—the lowest percentage in the world.

"Sugar is more than just a business in Louisiana; it's a way of life," Gravois concluded. "We've been growing sugar here for more than two centuries. We even named our biggest football game—the Sugar Bowl—after it. To throw all that away so a handful of multi-billion-dollar candy companies can make a few extra bucks doesn't make sense."