The USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) announced loan rates for 2012-crop (Fiscal Year 2013) sugar as required by the 2008 Farm Bill. The 2012-crop national average loan rate, as specified in the 2008 Farm Bill, is 24.09 cents per pound for refined beet sugar, the same as last year. Regional loan rates are developed from national loan rates to reflect marketing cost differentials.
USDA's Sugar Loan Program provides price support loans to processors of sugarbeets and domestically grown sugarcane. Price support loans are nonrecourse, thus processors have the option of delivering the pledged sugar collateral to the CCC as full satisfaction for the loan at maturity. The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) 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 of 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.