U.S. sugarcane growers will be unable to provide enough sugar to meet demand from food and beverage makers, so the USDA raised the import quota for cane sugar 15 percent for the year ending on Sept. 30. Some food companies are shifting to cane sugar rather than use sugar from genetically engineered sugar beets.
In an announcement, USDA said it acted to assure “an adequate sugar supply in an uncertain market. This uncertainty is in part due to inaction on GE labeling legislation and lack of consumer information about genetic technology.” The sugar beet crop is forecast to set a record this year, yet growers “continue to face uncertainty,” said USDA. Beet and cane growers have fought each other, as well as corn syrup, for a share of the sweetener market.
The USDA said it shifted 500,000 short tons, raw value, in marketing allotments for U.S. cane sugar processors to foreign growers of cane sugar. Some 300,000 tons of the reassignments went to sugar already expected to enter the country. So the effective increase in the quota was 200,000 tons, or 15 percent. The USDA said 140,000 tons would go to WTO members and 40,000 tons would go to Mexico, which is covered by a separate agreement on trade in sweeteners.