USDA seeks more buyers of sugar for ethanol production

In Washington, The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is offering to sell its recently acquired sugar inventory for use as a feedstock for bio-energy production using the authority of the Feedstock Flexibility Program (FFP). CCC successfully sold 143,143 short tons under its previous FFP tenders.

CCC acquired 296,500 short tons of sugar on Oct. 1, 2013, in lieu of cash repayments on its remaining 2012 crop year sugar loans. The forfeiture of sugar, which was pledged as collateral by processors that receive nonrecourse commodity loans from CCC, was due to a severe reduction in sugar prices in FY 2013. This was caused by the U.S./Mexican sugar supply far exceeding demand in our common sugar market. CCC is prohibited by the 2008 Farm Bill from selling its sugar inventory for domestic human consumption unless there is an emergency sugar shortage. CCC is increasing the minimum FFP bid to 50,000 short tons (100 million pounds) to provide the opportunity for commercial-scale sugar use in bio-energy production.