by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
A group of Suffolk farmers stands to lose up to a million Ponds Sterling of sugar beet as a disastrous harvest continues to see crops written off.
Some estimates now suggest as much as 1.2 million tons of this year’s 7 million ton national beet crop could be lost. Beet that have not been uplifted across eastern England is deteriorating rapidly in mild and wet conditions following Britain’s coldest December for 100 years.
Farmers are being forced to look on helplessly as their crops rot and turn to mush in the fields. British Sugar says it is accepting as many deliveries as it can, but deteriorated beet remains difficult to process.
With the crop still in the ground – and little sign of how much will be lifted – it is anyone’s guess what it might eventually yield.
The problem is, in all honesty, not so much the weather as the fact that in no other European country except Britain the harvest of sugar beet is that late. The sugar beet campaign in Germany begins in about early November and by Christmas it is all over. British farmers wait too long, and that because we have not had bad winters for decades now.
British Sugar must open its factories earlier, even though beet would have lower sugar content. It is wrong to expect growers to harvest so late and risk losing crops altogether.
Rather than maximising its profits at farmers’ expense, British Sugar should reduce the risks faced by growers by opting for an earlier start to the campaign.
It is still better to take a lower yield at the front end and get the land turned around and put into something else than it is to wait until the end of March and still not be able to put the land into anything the following year.
British Sugar declined to comment on the extent of crop losses. In a statement, the company said this year’s weather conditions were exceptional and could not have been foreseen.
The company added: "It is widely accepted that the UK’s campaign length improves the competitiveness of the sector, especially when compared to some other European countries which benefit from higher crop yields."
So, the blame is put, as per usual in industry, at the door of someone else, in this case that other European countries have a greater yield in sugar beet.
I should think that if British farmers would have a little visit to places such as northern Germany and talk to the sugar beet farmers there, such as in areas near the Luneburger Heath, they might pick up a few pointers as how to improve yields and how to have the campaign finished before any chance of frost destroying the crop.
British farmers have been lulled into a false security with the warmer and milder winters over the last thirty or so years; things were different in earlier decades, and also with the talk of winters getting milder and ever milder due top “global warming”.
What seems to be happening, however, is a change in the oscillation of the ocean currents and the Gulf Stream may have been changed or lost strength and we better prepare for more winters like the last one to come. And, if it does not happen, well then something else can be put onto the harvested field, maybe, till spring.
© 2011
