2009-crop sugar loan rates
Sep 29, 2009 10:01 AM
USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation has announced loan rates for 2009-crop sugar as required by the 2008 farm bill. The 2009-crop national average loan rate is 18.25 cents per pound for raw cane sugar and 23.45 cents per pound for refined beet sugar, increased from last year. These national loan rates are adjusted regionally to reflect marketing cost differentials.
USDA’s Sugar Loan Program provides nonrecourse loans to processors of sugar beets and domestically grown sugarcane. Price support loans are nonrecourse as the commodity is pledged as loan collateral and producers have the option of delivering the pledged collateral to the CCC as full payment for the loan at maturity.
The USDA Farm Service Agency administers nonrecourse loans for the 2008 through 2012 crops on behalf of the CCC. Sugar and in-process sugar loans are available beginning Oct. 1 each fiscal year and mature at the earlier of (1) the end of the nine-month period beginning on the first day of the first month after the month in which the loan is made, or (2) the end of the fiscal year in which the loan is made.
Loan Rates for Refined Beet Sugar
The loan rates for raw cane sugar in Louisiana is 18.96.
The 2009-crop raw cane sugar loan rate for Louisiana is 18.96 cents per pound of cane sugar, raw value.
Sugar beet and sugarcane processors who receive CCC loans in fiscal 2010 are required to make minimum grower payments for all sugar beets and sugarcane received from growers. Processors failing to meet the required minimum grower payment will be ineligible for loans.
Sugar beet grower minimum payments are the amount specified in the grower/processor contract.
Sugarcane processors must pay at least a minimum payment level for average quality sugarcane to their growers. A grower’s payment level can be adjusted according to the quality adjustment method in the grower/processor contract.
The minimum payment in Louisiana is $27.81 per gross ton.
CCC has modified the raw sugar loan schedule of premiums and discounts incurred upon forfeiture to reflect the new loan rate and current commercial raw sugar marketing practices. This schedule has been incorporated into FSA Handbook 10-SU, which is available at http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/10-su.pdf, or in FSA state and county offices.
For more information, contact your local USDA Service Center or Barbara Fecso at (202) 720-4146, barbara.fecso@wdc.usda.gov.
