Depreciating sugar stock in Brazil and India has added an icing on hitherto low global prices.

Early on March 18, 2025, the top contract for raw sugar in New York rose 3.7% day-on-day to a three-week high. 

At $0.20 a pound, the sweetener has finally redeemed itself from lengthy underperformance below $0.18. 

Shortage in India

Factors contributing to the strengthening price is the shortage blight in India, which further revised its 2024-25 production below an October 2024 estimate. 

The Indian Sugar and Bio-Energy Manufacturers Association (ISMA) currently puts 2024-25 production at 26.4 million tonnes. This is a markdown from the foregoing January 2025 estimate of 27.27 million tonnes.

Emerging market events surrounding the tight supplies within India itself include the rally in share values of sugar millers. 

Uttam Sugar, EID Parry India and Balrampur Chini Mills all recorded share surges by 30% on March 18, according to Money Control. 

Brazil’s Stock Worries

But of more immediate concern is Brazil, where a sporadic dry spell in the cane belt is retracting harvest forecasts. 

On March 13, Unica recorded February 2025 harvests in central and southern Brazil as down by -5.5% year-on-year.

The governmental agency Conab had meanwhile in February also slashed its monthly 2024-25 sugar production to 44 million tonnes.

On top of this production pressure in the world’s leading producer, the International Sugar Organization (ISO) is recording a mounting deficit.

ISO has increased the global deficit to -4.88 million tonnes, three times the 2023-24 actual deficit of 1.31 million tonnes.

Thanks therefore to a downturn in the international sugar stock, global prices are back in the black after five lackluster years. And below is how the world’s reserves of the sweetener have shaped up in the past decade, per the statistics below. 

World Sugar Stock Historical Statistics

From a historical perspective, changes in the world’s sugar stock in the 2010-2025 period followed predictable patterns. First there were consecutive increases for a number of years followed by sharp declines for a year or two.

2010-11: sugar reserves stand at a low 29.3 million tonnes.

2011-12: yearly stock rallies by over 6 million tonnes year-on-year (y-o-y), to 35.2 million tonnes.

2012-2015: in the three-year period, the stock increases first by an annual margin of 7 million tonnes (2012-13). The 2013-14 period then registers a rise by 2 million tonnes while 2014-15 adds 4 million tonnes, to 48.77 million tonnes.

2015-17: the global stock depreciates consecutively by 4 million tonnes (2015-16) and then 2 million tonnes (2016-17), to 42.2 million tonnes.

2018-20:  reserves rally by 9 million tonnes to 51.68 million tonnes in 2018-19, and then by 1 million tonnes (2019-20).

2019-2025: from 2019-20 to 2024-25, the sugar stock has fluctuated more than any other collective period since 2010. From 47.65 million tonnes in 2019-20, through peak 52.83 million tonnes in 2020-21, reserves slashed to 40.22 million tonnes in 2023-24. They could be  heading to 38.34 million tonnes in 2024-25.