European farmers expect good prices for sugar beets and sugar itself this year, but overall a shortage is expected on the market.
This year, world beet prices are expected to be above the average level over the past few years.
It is predicted that a ton of beets will cost about 50 euros, and a ton of sugar – about 840 euros. These are all record levels.
Currently, world prices for white sugar have dropped slightly compared to what we saw recently.
The reason is that markets are expecting significant sugar supplies from Brazil.
But in general, the state of the world market does not inspire much optimism.
On the New York and London stock exchanges, sugar prices are now 20% higher than a year ago, and if compared with average prices over the last 5 years, today they are 80-90% higher.
At the same time, Europe expects that the alliance countries will face a sugar shortage over the next year.
Production, although it will increase by 8% compared to last year, will still be less than consumption: 16.2 million tons versus 17.1 million tons.
Therefore, in the 2023-2024 season, Europe will depend on imports.
What problems did European farmers face?
The first thing that worries them this year is the prolonged beet harvest.
As farmers note, in the Rhineland, for example, up to 15% of the crop remains unharvested, but usually by this time this figure does not exceed 3%.
It’s all about bad weather conditions: heavy rainfall prevents combines from working.
At the same time, beets, even if they can be harvested in the end, lose quality due to the delayed timing: the average sugar content in them is about 16%, which is a very low indicator.
The second problem that worries European farmers and sugar beet producers is the so-called “rubber disease” — stolbur.
Beets affected by it have a shorter shelf life, which can also create problems with its processing.
At the same time, in the current season, the area of beets that was affected by this disease amounted to 50 thousand hectares, which is about 15% of all sown areas under this crop in Germany.
The yield of sugar beets in this country is generally good: about 100 tons per hectare. However, the problems that the industry has had to face must be recognized as significant.
Efforts are now being made to find solutions.
In particular, a research group has been created to find a way to combat stolbur in order to improve the quality of beets produced by European farmers in the future.
