Sugar no. 11 is the world raw sugar benchmark; the no. 16 contract covers the protected US domestic market and trades at a large premium. Brazil is the dominant exporter, and Brazilian mills can switch cane between sugar and ethanol production depending on relative prices, which links sugar to cl and to the Brazilian real.
That flexibility means the market has a soft floor near ethanol parity: when sugar falls far enough, mills make fuel instead and supply tightens.
Example: sugar at 22 cents is $0.22 x 112,000 = $24,640 per contract — one of the smaller notionals on the board. A one-cent move is $1,120, and the contract's low value makes it popular for learning soft commodities.
Related: coffee-futures, cocoa-futures, cotton-futures, ice-exchange, cl