Abundant 2013 Sugar Crop Blunted By Low Prices

LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — Louisiana sugar-cane farmers have just completed harvesting a 2013 crop that came close to 2012's record output, but banner yields this year will be blunted by the lowest sugar-cane prices in decades caused by a record amount of sugar imported from Mexico and other countries.

Ben Legendre, head of the Audubon Sugar Institute, in St. Gabriel, tells The Advocate Mexico exported 2 million tons of sugar into the U.S. in the past year.

Jim Simon, general manager of the American Sugar Cane League, says the price sugarcane is well below the 27 to 34 cents per pound paid in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Legendre and Simon said 2013's yield fell just short of the record crop output of 2012.