Agriculture Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Michael Scuse, left, is welcomed to the International Sweetener Colloquium by Clayton Hough, a senior director of the International Dairy Foods Association, one of the organizers of the event. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)

DANA POINT, Calif. — Agriculture Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Michael Scuse said here today that he does not expect USDA to have to spend any money on the sugar program in fiscal year 2014.

After a speech to the International Sweetener Colloquium here, Scuse told The Hagstrom Report that even though USDA had to spend money in fiscal year 2013, he believes the department will be able to comply with Congress’s mandate to run the program without taxpayer expense if possible.

Scuse did not discuss program costs in his speech to the colloquium, which is sponsored by the Sweetener Users Association, but said in the interview that he believes that due to improved information gathering and certain actions by Mexico there will be a better equilibrium in the North American market.

Scuse also noted that the 2013 sugar crop in both the United States and Mexico was huge and that any bad weather would have changed the dynamics of that market.

In his speech, Scuse noted that USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation had to take 10 separate actions on sugar to comply with the program under the 2008 farm program. The actions included exchanges of rights to import sugar, accepting sugar under growers’ rights to forfeit sugar to the government if prices fall below support prices and selling the forfeited sugar to biofuels plants.

Although he did not mention the cost of these actions in his speech, he said in the interview that the total cost was $280 million, but that the government gained $20 million from the sales of sugar to biofuels plants, bringing the final cost down to $260 million.

The 2014 farm bill has continued the sugar program with no changes.

Details on Scuse’s speech and other events at the International Sweetener Colloquium will follow.