Sugar and gasoline don’t have a lot in common, unless you’re in a sugarcane mill in Brazil, in which case they’re literally the same plant. Usually that’s a fun fact, but right now it’s a problem.
Brazil is the world’s dominant sugar exporter—roughly 45% of everything traded globally. Every harvest, mills decide how much sugarcane goes to sugar and how much goes to ethanol. When oil prices are low, the math favors sugar. When oil spikes, ethanol gets more profitable, and cane gets pulled away from sweetener production.
