Sugar growers head for Brussels

Sugar beet growers from across the West Midlands will be among several thousands of beet growers from across Europe, who will be gathering in Brussels next Monday. (JULY 18)

They will have a simple message for EU leaders meeting there on that day: the proposed reform of the EU sugar regime must be reduced in severity if the EU sugar growing and processing industry is not to be decimated.

It is now widely accepted that the current EU support arrangements for sugar beet are not sustainable in the longer term.

Discussions on ways of opening up the EU market to additional imports from the Less Developed Countries (LDC) have been going on for some time.

These must also introduce arrangements to ease the economic disruption caused by the exporting of sugar from the developed world to these countries at uneconomic price levels.

The issue is central to the current round of negotiations within the World Trade Organisation and has been recently been highlighted by the 'Make Poverty History' campaign.

While accepting the need for reform, the package proposed by the EU Commission on 22 June is so severe, in terms of the cut in the price paid for sugar, that many EU and UK growers will simply not be able to continue beet growing.

Price cuts of up to 42 per cent are being proposed and for UK growers these cuts could reach 47 per cent because of special pricing arrangements that apply in this country.

Nigel Roper, a beet grower from Herefordshire and chairman of the NFU West Midlands Sugar Board, explains that the UK sugar growing and processing sector is one of the most efficient in Europe.

"The UK is currently only some 50 per cent self sufficient and imports the balance of its requirements in the form of cane sugar from the LDCs," said Mr Roper.

"Many of these countries have longstanding agreements under which an allocated tonnage can be imported and paid for at the EU price level.

"This contributes very significantly to the economies of these countries. Such severe price cuts, rather than assisting in combating poverty in these countries, is likely to have the opposite effect.

'The sugar growing and processing industry in the UK supports some 20,000 jobs. Many of these jobs would be likely to disappear if the current price cuts are not revised.

"The position is particularly worrying for growers in the West Midlands who supply beet to the British Sugar factory at Allscott, near Shrewsbury.

"Any restructuring of the industry would mean transporting beet across to the other factories in East Anglia with all the environmental and transport consequences that would follow."

The industry must work to develop a Fair Trade policy and we recognise the need to adopt measures that will ease the poverty in the LDCs.

However, Fair Trade must be fair to all and must be reflected in a fair price to all growers for producing sugar - anything less would be inequitable.

Simply slashing prices to the lowest possible level would result in the production vacuum that this would generate being taken up by Brazil as the world's lowest cost producer."

Mr Roper added: "We need a sugar regime that will provide:

- A stable market

- Realistic prices for all

- Reform that encourages efficiency and fair competition

- Reform that achieves a fair balance between stakeholders

- Reform that honours commitments to Developing Countries.