Results of sugar reform consultation published
Defra have published a summary of responses on its consultation into sugar reform. The results show strong support for reform, though there were a wide range of opinions on how this should be taken forward.
Defra received 37 written responses to the consultation from grower and processor interests, food manufacturing and consumer representatives, trade associations, NGOs and environmental bodies, local authorities, and individuals. The key findings were:
* Most respondents believed the voluntary restructuring scheme was preferable to compulsory quota cuts.
* There was strong support for grower compensation to be fully decoupled, though there was a wider range of views on the way payments should be calculated and the basis for integration into the UK's Single Payment Scheme.
* There was a greater polarisation of views on the level of price cut than on any other issue, with a clear distinction between grower/processor interests and those of the food industry and consumers of sugar.
* A clear difference of views emerged as between beet processing and existing cane refining interests over future access to supplies of raw cane sugar and the terms of competition for this.
* A very diverse range of views were received regarding environmental impacts both in relation to the UK position and to the wider EU and international consequences of changes in the present patterns of cropping and trade, particularly in developing countries.
Agriculture Minister Lord Bach said "The existing EU sugar regime is nearly forty years old and is now unsustainable, particularly in the light of other CAP reforms and the EU's international trade obligations. The Government is already on record as supporting a liberalising, market-based approach to reform. The consultation has shown that there is widespread interest in how these necessary reforms are managed. The ideas and issues raised during the consultation period will complement the views already put to us by stakeholders in the extensive contacts which have taken place since the Commission outlined options for reform in late 2003.
