The eastern half of Europe got involved in sugar beet production

The USDA estimates that 15.5 million tons of raw sugar can be produced from the European Union's 1.4 million hectares of sugar beet this year. This would represent a 3 percent increase compared to last year's amount, even though the area planted to sugar beet in the largest producer, France, decreased by 6 percent. French farmers cultivate an average of 28 percent of the EU's total sugar beet area. However, the decrease in beet area here was more than offset by the improvement in the willingness to plant sugar beet in Poland, Spain, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. The Poles alone put 19 percent(!) more agricultural land at the service of sugar beet production. This year, even with an emergency permit, it was not possible to use neonicotinoid herbicides on seeds, which is why many French farmers switched to other crops. The reason for this is that in the year following the ban of the active ingredient group (2020), French farms suffered the greatest damage due to viral yellowing of ...