U.S. sugar production will be the highest ever in the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, thanks to peak sugarbeet and sugarcane output, said a monthly USDA report. Production was forecast at 9.514 million tons, raw value, a nearly 4 percent increase from the current year.
The United States is one of the world’s largest producers and importers of sugar. The government guarantees a minimum price to domestic growers. It uses tariffs to limit imports as a way to balance supply and demand, so the sugar program operates at little cost to taxpayers.
While growers and processors say the program assures a reliable supply of sugar at a steady price, critics say it results in higher food prices; the U.S. price for sugar is almost always higher than the price on the world market.
“Reforming or replacing the sugar program would be a win for consumers who have already been facing inflation for years,” said the good government group Citizens Against Government Waste in May as the House Agriculture Committee neared a vote on the new farm bill. “Under this regime, American consumers pay double the price of sugar that consumers in other countries around the world pay.”
The USDA’s Sugar and Sweeteners Outlook said beet sugar production would total 5.363 million tons, the highest on record, in 2024/25, thanks to improved sugarbeet yields per acre. Cane sugar production would also hit an all-time high, 4.151 million tons, lifted by record-setting output in Florida and Louisiana. Sugarbeets are grown in 11 states in the upper Midwest, the Plains, and the West. Sugarcane is grown in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.
With increased domestic production, imports would decline to 2.933 million tons in 2024/25, a drop of 20 percent from the current year, said the USDA. But imports from Mexico would recover to 676,000 tons from this year’s 441,000 tons, the lowest total in more than a decade. Dry and hot weather slashed production in Mexico this year to a 29-year low.
U.S. sugar production has averaged roughly 9 million tons annually for the past several years, up from about 6 million tons in the 1980s. The increased production is the result of improved crop varieties, larger plantings, better processing equipment, and new technology. Some 4,000 U.S. farms grow sugarcane and sugarbeets.