The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week announced it will allow an additional 269,724 short tons raw value (STRV) of sugar imports into the United States through October 31. The change is one of several adjustments USDA is making to the U.S. sugar program to ensure an adequate supply of raw cane sugar in the U.S. market, which is in high demand by U.S. food manufacturers.
The U.S. is a net importer of sugar, and more than 200 IDFA members depend on an adequate supply of sugar to produce their products.
USDA announced additional changes to the sugar program, which include plans to:
- Increase the Overall Allotment Quantity, or amount of domestically produced sugar able to be sold in the United States so that sales are not less than 85 percent of U.S. consumption;
- Reassign beet sugar marketing allocations from certain U.S. processors with inadequate supplies to other processors needing additional allocations; and
- Reassign 870,000 STRV of the domestic cane sector supply shortfall to raw cane sugar imports.
USDA also requested that the Department of Commerce increase the limit of exports from Mexico to allow an additional 103,932 STRV and that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative reallocate the raw sugar tariff-rate quota (TRQ) for fiscal year 2017, which is 95,344 STRV, so that the expected shortfall may be met by sugar imported from other countries.
With this increase, the overall raw sugar TRQ for fiscal year 2017 will be 1,501,221 STRV.
USDA also announced that sugar entering under the revised TRQ will be permitted to enter through October 31, 2017, a month later than usual, to increase the chances for supplying countries to fill their import quotas.
Read, “Raw Sugar Tariff-Rate Quota: Increases Fiscal Year 2017” in the Federal Register.
For more information, contact Beth Hughes, IDFA director of international affairs, at bhughes@idfa.org.