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WASHINGTON, August 17,2000--The U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Commodity Credit Corporation today announced a 2-week signup period
for the Sugar Payment-In-Kind (PIK) Program. Signup will begin
Monday, August 21, 2000, and continue through Friday, September 1,
2000. Individual producers will work directly with processors to
complete program forms. The processors will, in turn, provide the
information directly to CCC.
The PIK Program offers sugar beet producers the choice of
diverting from production a portion of their crop in exchange for
sugar held by CCC. Farmers can bid for this sugar in CCC inventory
by offering to divert acres from production.
Farmers are limited to $20,000 in PIK payments. In early
September, producers will be notified of bid acceptance. Producers
with accepted bids will be required to visit their local USDA
Service Center to report to the Farm Service Agency the specific
acres that will be diverted.
By reducing this year's harvest, the PIK Program will help reduce
government inventory costs, reduce potential forfeitures of loan
collateral under CCC's sugar program during Fiscal Year (FY) 2001,
and alleviate the current sugar overproduction situation.
]CCC is currently holding 174,000 tons of refined sugar in
inventory. Because market prices are at an 18-year low and around 4
cents per pound below the price level needed to encourage CCC sugar
loan repayments, a significant amount of the 640,000 tons of refined
beet sugar pledged as collateral for outstanding nonrecourse loans
is expected to be forfeited during the remainder of FY 2000.
NOTE: Farm Service Agency (FSA) news releases and media advisories
are available on the World Wide Web at FSA's Home Page: http://www.fsa.usda.gov/pas/news/releases/index.htm
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