Tillage farmers’ dreams of reviving the Irish sugar industry may have missed the boat, as plans emerge for major sugarbeet increases in the UK and France.
The rise in EU beet sowings is estimated at 15%, but Associated British Foods, the sole processor of UK beet for sugar, said the area it has contracted with farmers for growing sugar beet has increased by a third for 2017-18.
The increases are timed to take advantage of the EU scrapping sugar output quotas next October, which will remove the current EU production limits.
France’s Tereos, the world’s third largest sugar producer, expects its sugarbeet processing volume to rise by 25% in 2017-18.
France’s Cristal Union has estimated its growers increased sowings this year by 25%.
The UK imports about 1m tonnes of sugar per year, including about 400,000t of white sugar from the EU, mainly from France.
But Brexit will offer UK farmers the opportunity to replace some of the imports.
Hence the signs of expansion of the UK beet industry, now concentrated in the East Anglia arable farming region after decades of sugar beet acreage shrinkage.
Growers are also encouraged by Al Khaleej International from the United Arab Emirates submitting plans for the first new sugarbeet factory in the UK for 90 years, in Yorkshire.
Source: www.irishexaminer.com