Netherlands Sugar insights

Rabobank expects a sugar price increase of around 10 percent for the last quarter of 2024. In the longer term, the bank predicts stabilization and a gradual decline to the price level of earlier this year.

During this week, the upward movement of grain prices on the world stock markets calmed down and even went back minimally in some of the contracts. FOB Chicago bread wheat fell $1.00 to $269.00/t for October delivery, France was unchanged at €234.00/t. Ukraine and Russia continued with barely noticeable gains, adding $1.00 and $2.00 respectively to prices of $228.00/t and $225.00/t. The US corn price movement follows the same direction - minus $1.00 in the US to $212.00/t, in France minus €2.00 to €218.00/t, but up again in Ukraine up $8.00 to $220.00/t. Wheat prices on the world market shot up Barley in Ukraine rose another $2.00 to $196.00/t for October delivery, while Euronext canola for November delivery rose more sharply this week with a solid rise from 15, 00 EUR to 496.00 EUR/ton.

Sugar beet production in the 2024/25 marketing year (corresponding to 2024 sowings) is expected to grow by 4% compared to the previous campaign, reaching approximately 15.4 Mt. This increase is mainly due to an increase in the planted area, motivated by expectations of high prices in the sugar market, which has attracted farmers to this crop, according to the report made by the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).