David's Digest

This very nice Dutch farmer happened to be staying at the same farmhouse B&B as I was during the Royal Show. His arable farm was in the south of the country close to Belgium and on it he grows wheat, onions and sugar beet. Onions were clearly his top crop for profit and he said he had had a very good year in 2006. He had sold his wheat at better prices too, that was why he was able to afford to bring his wife and two children to the Royal.
But the sugar beet won't have contributed much to your profits, I volunteered. Oh yes they did, he replied. We had a very high yield last year. But what about CAP reform and the reduced price, I continued. Well, it wasn't too serious, he said, only 3% less than the year before.
But British beet growers have had a cut of 37% I said and there's more to come. Sugar beet are beginning to look very questionable in this country,especially with the threat of more quota cuts.
My Dutch friend could not understand why our price cut was so severe. My beet go to our co-operative, he told me, and they have diversified into a variety of other sugar based products. They in turn make good profits and the co-op shares those with growers so that we do not suffer too much.
Naively, I had thought that all sugar beet growers across the EU were similarly affected by the sugar reform package. Not so, apparently. It set me wondering whether British Sugar with its famed efficiency were profiting more than growers know from alternate income. And it made me regret, once again, that growers did not take over the processor twenty five years ago when we had the chance. Meanwhile my eyes probably went a pale shade of green as I wished my new Dutch friend well and hoped he would have a good Royal Show.