Sugar Price History: Monthly Global Price Since 1992

Sugar is a globally traded sweetener and biofuel feedstock — roughly 80% comes from sugarcane (Brazil, India, Thailand) and 20% from beet. This dataset tracks the IMF Primary Commodity Prices benchmark, the International Sugar Agreement (ISA) daily price for raw sugar, published monthly in US cents per pound and distributed via FRED under the code PSUGAISAUSDM, with continuous coverage since 1992.

Dataset: Sugar Price (1992–2026) · Updated 2026-03-01

Source: IMF Primary Commodity Prices · International Monetary Fund (via FRED)

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns. Each row represents one calendar month.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats — monthly observations covering more than three decades.

FRED Direct CSV Access

The underlying data is published in the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database under the series code PSUGAISAUSDM, sourced from the IMF Primary Commodity Prices dataset:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=PSUGAISAUSDM

The Eco3min dataset mirrors the same monthly series, packaged in a stable, versionable CSV with consistent column names — designed for direct ingestion in Python, R, or any data pipeline. The URL never changes, making it suitable for automated scripts.

Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/sugar-price.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/sugar-price.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["sugar_price"].describe())

df.plot(x="date", y="sugar_price", title="Sugar Price", legend=False)

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/sugar-price.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$sugar_price)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.

Methodology

The IMF reports the International Sugar Agreement (ISA) daily price for raw sugar in US cents per pound, a free-market reference average.

Values are monthly averages, which smooth the intra-month swings visible in daily futures and physical quotes. The series begins in 1992.

This dataset is updated monthly via an automated pull from the FRED API (series PSUGAISAUSDM) by an Eco3min pipeline running on GitHub Actions, which regenerates the cleaned CSV and Excel files and refreshes the page metadata.

Data Quality & Provider Notes

The IMF/benchmark price is a widely cited physical-market reference. A few provider-specific points matter when using this series.

• Release latency. The IMF publishes Primary Commodity Prices monthly, typically in the first week of the following month. FRED ingests the update shortly after, and Eco3min mirrors it with a monthly pull. The series is not a real-time price.
• Monthly average vs futures spot. This series is a monthly average. It will differ from any single exchange settlement, and a monthly average necessarily understates intra-month peaks.
• Revisions. Prices are market-derived and not subject to the vintage revisions of survey-based macro series, though the IMF can restate recent observations.
• Alternative sources. ICE futures and the originating auction or indicator bodies provide higher-frequency or contract-specific quotes.

Common Pitfalls When Using This Series

1. Confusing nominal and real prices. This series is nominal. Comparing an early-1990s reading to a recent one without adjusting for cumulative inflation overstates the real change. Deflating by CPI gives the true purchasing-power move.
2. Reading the monthly average as a market price. Headlines quote exchange futures; this dataset reports the monthly benchmark average. The two diverge most during fast-moving rallies.
3. Unit confusion. This series is raw sugar in US cents per pound; London white (refined) sugar is quoted in US dollars per ton and trades at a “white premium” over raw, so the two are not interchangeable.

Historical Regimes

1992–2005 — Low and volatile. Ample global supply held prices mostly in the high single digits to low teens (cents per pound).

2006–2011 — Ethanol-era surge. Rising biofuel demand and supply deficits carried sugar to a multi-decade high near 36 cents per pound in early 2011.

2012–2019 — Surplus and decline. Successive global surpluses dragged prices back into a 12-18 cents-per-pound range.

2020–2022 — Post-pandemic recovery. Firmer energy prices (ethanol parity) and weather lifted sugar off its lows.

2023 — El Niño peak. Drought in India and Thailand and India’s export restrictions pushed the ISA price to roughly 26 cents per pound, the highest since September 2011.

2024–2025 — Correction. Recovering Brazilian center-south output and an improving global balance pulled prices lower.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

Commodity Price Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min commodity price repository — energy, metals, agricultural softs, and grains, all sourced from IMF Primary Commodity Prices via FRED.

Explore the Commodity Price Hub

Sources

• International Monetary Fund — Primary Commodity Prices, Global Price of Sugar
• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — FRED database, series PSUGAISAUSDM
• International Sugar Organization (ISO) — daily price basis underlying the IMF series

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). Sugar Price — Global Monthly Price (1992-2026). Source: IMF Primary Commodity Prices via FRED.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/sugar-price-history-dataset/