The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) forecasts sugarbeet acreage intentions for crop year 2009–10 at 1.152 million acres, about 5.7 percent higher than area planted in crop year 2008–09.
Assuming normal sucrose levels, normal area harvested-to-planted ratios, and continued improvement in productivity.
USDA projects national beet sugar production in crop year 2009–10 at 4.610 million short tons, raw value (STRV). Because 60,000 STRV of this production is expected to occur in September (the last month of fiscal year 2009), FY 2010 beet sugar production is projected at 4.550 million STRV, according to the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report.
This amount is about 6.8 percent higher than the estimated 4.260 million STRV in FY 2009. The USDA projects FY 2010 cane sugar production at 3.525 million STRV, an increase of 179,000 STRV over that of FY 2009.
FY 2010 Beet Sugar Production
NASS forecasts sugarbeet acreage intentions for crop year 2009–10 at 1.152 million acres, about 5.7 percent higher than area planted in crop year 2008–09.
Area in the Far West region (Idaho, California and Oregon) is forecast at 201,000 acres, an increase of 21.5 percent. Area in the Great Plains (Colorado, Montana, Nebraska and Wyoming) is forecast at 155,600 acres, an increase of 10.8 percent.
Area in the largest U.S. producing region of the Upper Midwest (Minnesota and North Dakota) is forecast to grow only modestly by 1.4 percent to 657,000 acres.
Area in Michigan is forecast at about the same level as last year, 138,000 acres (1,000 acres more than 2008–09).
The national sugarbeet yield is forecast at 26.4 tons/acre, only slightly below the 2008/09 record yield of 26.7 tons/acre. Area planted to genetically modified organism (GMO) seed varieties is forecast to grow to about 95 percent of total area, up from about 60 percent last year.
The jump in yields in most States took place in 2006–07 and was due mainly to use of rhizomania resistant seed varieties and use of Pancho Beta to control for Curly Top. Fuller adaption of GMO seeds reinforces the trend of substantially higher yields into the coming year.
Assuming trend improvements in processing, the USDA projects national beet sugar production in crop year 2009–10 at 4.610 million STRV. Because 60,000 STRV of this production is expected to occur in September (the last month of FY 2009), FY 2010 beet sugar production is projected at 4.550 million STRV. This amount is about 6.8 percent higher than the estimated 4.260 million STRV in FY 2009.
Tariff-Rate Quotas
Although the raw and refined sugar tariff-rate quotas (TRQ) for FY 2010 have not yet been announced, the USDA projects them at minimum levels implied by existing international commitments to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and at the allocated levels of existing Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The projection in the May WASDE is, therefore, at 1.232 million STRV. Projected shortfall at 150,000 STRV is at about the same higher-than-normal level estimated in FY 2009 (155,000 STRV) because several quota-holding countries are diverting sugar to the European Union (EU) before preferential prices available to them are reduced according to the EU’s sugar reform schedule.