Its been a long time coming and even now its not exactly exciting. But British Sugar, the monopoly processor of all the sugar beet grown in this contry, has finally accepted that if it wishes to have sufficient critical mass of beet grown in Britain to run its factories it will have to pay more for roots than was originally negotiated a year ago.
£17.50/t plus a few pounds ex the SFP was the base price set by the EU. British Sugar added a pound or so to that and said that was all it could afford. Take it or leave it. Oh yes, and they also agreed to an escalator clause that would add a bit more if the price of wheat rose to £95/t.
This at least was recognition that for farmers to want to grow beet it would have to be competitive with grain.
Then, of course, the price of wheat went up. And suddenly the £95 escalator clause was irrelevant. Growers, myself included, said negotiations should be re-opened and account taken of the new situation. Well, eventually they were as British Sugar realised that the habit of growing sugar beet, so ingrained in east anglian farmers, would not be enough to keep them growing the crop.
Decision time was upon us. If there was no new offer on the table before the middle of January light land growers would start drilling barley instead.
In the event, British Sugar and the NFU have just announced that a new deal has been agreed. I won't go into the complex details that would bore non beet growers. But the essence of it is that a new escalator clause has been included that will increase the price of beet if wheat increases to an average of £150/t. If that happens the value of beet will rise to about £24/t.
Like I say its not wonderful and still a disappointment compared with the £30+ we used to get before EU reform. But at least its something and it may persuade some of those who had intended to stop growing to give it another year. The sad thing is its taken sustained and genuine threats by growers that they would not grow and supply beet to get British Sugar to move. Or perhaps its not so sad. Perhaps it has proved how powerful farmers can be if they will only stick together. If that's the case lets do it again.