French sugar output is expected to rise by 20 percent or around 1 million tonnes next year as the sector anticipates the scrapping of European Union sugar quotas after the harvest next year, growers group CGB said on Thursday. The EU's abolishment on September 30 of its current system of production quotas has prompted European sugar producers to plan increased output.
At EU level, CGB expects sugar production to rise between 10 and 15 percent next season from 16.5 million tonnes in 2016/17, CGB Director General Alain Jeanroy told a news conference. Analysts at a conference in London this week estimated EU output could rise as much as 3 million tonnes next season although some cautioned the forecast saying operational challenges could slow growth.
In contrast, CGB anticipated EU sugar consumption to fall by 1 million tonnes due to increasing competition from grain-based isoglucose, whose quotas will also be scrapped next year. In France, post-quota white sugar exports could rise to 3 million tonnes, from about 2 million currently, of which about 1.3 million would be outside the EU, the CGB said.
France has aimed to boost output as soon as this season to prepare for the end of quotas next year but the attempt was frustrated by adverse weather during crop development, Jeanroy said. CGB forecast France's 2016 sugar beet harvest at 34 million tonnes, compared to last season's 33.5 million tonnes. An estimated fall in the average yield to 85 tonnes per hectare (t/ha), down from 87 t/ha in 2015/16 and a five-year average of 89.7 t/ha, was expected to offset a nearly 5 percent increase in planted area to 400,467 hectares. White sugar production would stand at 4.9 million tonnes, based on a sugar yield of 12.2 t/ha, virtually stable on last season, a CGB spokesman said on the sidelines of the news conference.
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