The bulk of the market opportunities, however, are expected to arise in markets where domestic production cannot keep pace with demand. Among developed regions, too, some large increases in net imports are projected, including North America with net import growth of 4.0 percent p.a. Food Security Implications Sugar plays two very significant roles in relation to food security. First of all, sugar as a food crop may be considered an inexpensive and abundant source of calories and thus important in the fulfilment of basic human energy requirements. Secondly, sugar plays an important economic role in generating income, employment and export earnings.
Sugar is typically one of the most significant contributors to dietary energy supply.
And it is a relatively inexpensive food. The cost of calories from sugar is about 15 percent less than that from cereals. As for its economic importance in food security, sugar is an important source of export earning. In recent years, the ratio of sugar export earnings to global food import expenses was nearly 4 percent. The overall impact of sugar export earnings as a means to finance food imports is more pronounced for developing countries, which generated 54 percent of global sugar export earnings.