EU poised for sugar surge as yields, plantings offset wet weather

The European Union is nearing the end of an extended sugar beet campaign that should bring sharply higher output in the first season since quotas were scrapped, even as wet weather posed challenges to harvesting in parts of the bloc. The EU liberalised its sugar market last October, leaving farmers across the bloc free to plant as much beet as they wanted after more than a decade of strict output quotas and export limits.
The expected rise in EU production has contributed to concerns about a global supply glut in 2017/18, which has pressured world prices. Virtually all sugar beet has now been harvested in top producer France, and factories are expected to finish their campaign by early February, said Timothe Masson of French growers group CGB.
French sugar processors have extended their campaign by around a month to handle the increased harvest volume. The CGB expects refined sugar production to hit a record 6.2 million tonnes, up nearly a third from 2016/17. "We had good yields and a very long harvest campaign, together with the constraints that go with that," Masson said. Heavy rains this winter have made it harder for farmers to gather beet and store it while waiting for sugar makers to take delivery.
"The rain posed a problem although it was nothing like what was seen in Germany," Masson said. In Germany, the EU's second-largest grower, some factories have finished their campaign and all work should be completed by the end of January. Sugar production in Germany should reach around 5 million tonnes, up about 24 percent on last season despite the disruptive rains, said Guenter Tissen, CEO of German sugar industry association WVZ.
"The long harvest campaign this season was not always easy," Tissen said. "Rain made it difficult to harvest beets in some areas and wet earth attached to beets made processing difficult in some factories." Rains also made harvesting difficult in Poland, the EU's third-largest producer, and pushed the campaign into January, said Rafal Strachota, director of Polish sugar beet growers' association KZPBC. Poland's refined sugar production should exceed 2.1 million tonnes, up from 2.08 million tonnes last season, he said.
"Unfortunately, not all beets have been harvested, there are still beets in the ground in an area of several hundred hectares which still cannot be dug up," Strachota said. Beet processing has already wrapped up in most sugar factories, with all of it expected to be completed by the end of January. In Britain, the bloc's fourth-largest producer, output is expected to reach approximately 1.38 million tonnes, said Colm McKay, agriculture director at British Sugar.