David's Digest

Grower power, as expressed by around 300 of them representing some 14% of the national crop, who attended a meeting near Peterborough last month, forced British Sugar to re-open price negotiations with the NFU for 2009. The result has been a grudging £1/t increase in the contract offer plus a further £1/t transport allowance.

This shows that if farmers stick together in sufficient numbers they can influence what buyers pay them for commodities. But whether this paltry improvement will persuade growers to reverse the decisions many had made not to grow the crop again, only time will tell. For it barely recognises the real increases in the costs of growing beet and certainly does not cover them.

Only those growers on top grade land who can produce 75 to 80t/ha on a regular basis will find the British Sugar attractive. And only then because the value of some alternative crops has come down recently. Growers on grade 3 land who can only manage 60t/ha in a good year are unlikely to be swayed by British Sugar's "largesse". Who knows where that leaves this country's domestic sugar industry?