USDA offers sugar to ethanol producers for feedstock

In Washington, The Farm Service Agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that purchase invitations have been extended to solicit bids to the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) through the Feedstock Flexibility Program (FFP).

Congress created FFP in the 2008 Farm Bill which requires the purchase of sugar as a feedstock for producing fuel-grade ethanol and other biofuels to avoid forfeiture of sugar pledged as collateral by processors when securing nonrecourse commodity loans from CCC.

USDA is announcing the use of the FFP following the success of two sugar “exchanges” earlier this summer. On July 9, USDA awarded contracts to purchase 91,238 metric tons of sugar in exchange for 299,153 metric tons of re-export credits and Colombian Trade Promotion Agreement Certificates of Quota Eligibility. On July 31, USDA announced the results of a second exchange and purchased 15,504 metric tons of sugar and removed 46,559 metric tons of import access from the market.