The window for trading sugar beet quota is closing on 6th October, writes Bidwells’ Neil Cameron.

Beet is definitely not going to be the cash cow that it has in the past and for many light land beet growers in particular the beet reforms will remove the kingpin of their businesses.

It is time for farmers to make their mind up whether the crop has a place in their business beyond the end of this year with prices set at £19-20 per tonne. 

Comparison with performance between some alternate crops shows that beet still has the potential to produce a margin that compares favourably with other crops. But only farms that regularly exceed 55 tonnes per hectare saleable yield should consider continuing to grow beet.

One of the major arguments against beet is the impact that late harvesting of a portion of the crop can have on following crops.  Against this, the main work periods of spring drilling and late harvesting mean that labour and machinery use can be spread out over a greater period of time.

With beet there is a contracted price so budgeting can be carried out with some certainty and, importantly for many businesses, known payment terms.

Some farms will decide they have better alternatives available while others will invest in significant tonnages of quota to achieve economies of enterprise scale. 

Read Neil Cameron’s forum post in full together with costings and sensitivity analysis.

Why not add your comments to the forum?