Sugar beet farmers want to continue production

More than 80% of producers in favour of maintaining or expanding cultivation

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The bulk of Finland’s sugar beet producers appear willing and ready to continue cultivation under the new conditions (see earlier article from December), and even to increase the volume of production.
      A vote was held on the issue on Wednesday, and 82% of those represented were in favour of continuing.
      For all that, growers will in the next few days be facing some serious decisions, as binding supplier agreements will have to be filed by post to refiners Sucros Oy (a subsidiary of the Danish foodstuffs giant Danisco) by Tuesday of next week.
     
If a sufficient number of growers do not sign up to the new terms worked out between Sucros and the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK), then sugar beet cultivation will wither, and sugar production in Finland at the one remaining plant in Säkylä will cease through shortage of raw materials.
      The lengthening of transport distances from farm to refinery is causing furrowed brows among producers, who will take up most of the burden of the transport costs, and it is likely that cultivation will increasingly be geographically close to Säkylä. There are at present around 1,400 Finnish farmers producing sugar beet for the sugar industry.
      The hall in Aura in Western Finland was packed for the meeting, after invitations had been sent out by MTK.
      Around 800 producers and their family members were in attendance. They were informed of the contents of the seven-year agreement worked out between the producers’ associations and the sugar industry at the end of last year.
     
A total of 550 voting-slips were handed out.
      Some 70% said thet they would continue and possibly even increase the scale of their sugar beet cultivation. A further 12% said they would continue on the same basis as before, and 15% answered that they would be giving up cultivation.
      Three per cent of the votes cast were either blank or were rejected.
     
According to MTK’s sugar beet council chairman Pekka Myllymäki the result of the vote was promising, but everything still depends on whether enough growers sign agreements on cultivation with the refiners.
      In the background to the situation in Finland lies the European Union’s aim of limiting overproduction of sugar, which was first mooted in reforms launched in 2005.
      Minister of Agriculture Sirkka-Liisa Anttila (Centre Party), who spoke to the farmers at the gathering, also warned of the country’s security of supply of sugar in the future, making a reference to the days of her youth and sugar rationing cards.
     
Anttila stressed that national supports safeguarding the production of sugar beet in Finland would be raised to the maximum level of EUR 350 a hectare.
      In addition the state has resolved to reduce the burden of transport costs for sugar beet with an initial grant of Eur 1 million a year.
      The structural supports intended to be paid to farmers choosing to stop cultivating sugar beet would in the first instance be paid to producers furthest away from the Säkylä plant.
      There were speeches at the meeting that pointed out that the world price for refined sugar could turn upwards like those for other foodstuffs, and that this would improve the situation for Finnish producers, too.
     
Finnish sugar beet farmers in the south of the country were hit by the closure of the other remaining Danisco refinery in Salo at the end of 2006.
      That decision came as a reaction to the EU resolve to lower subsidies for sugar production, as part of a larger overhaul of sugar production within the Union.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  MTK and Sucros agree on sugar production issues (19.12.2007)
  EU sugar policies partially behind cancellation of Foreign Minister´s speech in Belgium (3.10.2007)
  Fate of Finnish sugar factory to be decided in spring (28.9.2007)
  EU decision endangers sugar production in Finland (27.9.2007)

Links:
  Danisco Sugar Refining: Säkylä Factory

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