Europe: Should we produce more beets in a buoyant sugar market?

“I don’t see the point for Europe and for France to produce less beets,” believes Sébastien Abis in any case. Invited to the CGB congress on December 7 in Reims, the geopolitics researcher, co-author of the book “Geopolitics of Sugar”, highlighted the advantages of this useful crop for food, energy, chemical industries, while storing carbon. If growers do not discover the advantages of beet, it is mainly the prices that interest them, especially since production costs have increased considerably in recent years, alongside the disappearance of plant protection solutions, notably neonicotinoids. . However, these prices should prove rather satisfactory this year, in a particularly buoyant market context. At the global level, the market was until now "captured by India", the second largest producer in the world, which exported its surpluses whenever prices were more attractive than on its domestic market, explains Olivier Crassard, market analyst for the Sucres group. and Foodstuffs. ...