The U.S. Department of Agriculture released its latest U.S. and Mexico sugar supply and use estimates for fiscal year (FY) 2012 and projections for FY 2013 in the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report.

On June 29, 2012, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) published

2012/13 forecasts of area planted and harvested for sugarbeets and of area harvested for sugarcane for sugar and seed. Sugarbeet area planted is forecast at 1.244 million acres, close to prospective sugarbeet plantings of 1.241 acres predicted by NASS in March.

Although total sugarbeet area planted is forecast up 0.9 percent compared with last year, the forecast for total area harvested at 1.216 million acres is practically the same as last year. NASS forecasts sugarcane area harvested at 892,000 acres, an increase of 2.2 percent over last year. Area is forecast up in Florida–13,000 acres and 3.3 percent—and also in Louisiana, at 10,000 acres and 2.4 percent.

Based on the NASS report, the USDA increased beet sugar production for FY 2013 by 60,000 STRV to 5.105 million STRV. The USDA adopted Florida sugarcane processors’ forecast of FY 2013 production at 1.890 million STRV and also increased Louisiana’s cane sugar forecast to 1.425 million due to NASS’s projected area-harvested increase.

The USDA made small adjustments to imports for both FY 2012 and FY 2013 and made no changes to sugar use for either FY 2012 or FY 2013. Ending stocks for FY 2012 are estimated at 1.809 million STRV, implying a small 0.1 percentage point decrease in the stocks-to-use ratio to 15.4 percent. Ending stocks for FY 2013 are projected at 1.748 million STRV. The implied ending stocks-to-use ratio is 14.7 percent, up from 13.1 percent projected last month.