Slightly larger EU sugar beet sowings at risk of disease attacks
PARIS, April 30 (Reuters) -European farmers planted slightly more sugar beet this year, encouraged by high sugar prices, but the harvest is uncertain after heavy rain delayed plantings and mild weather raised the risk of a devastating disease in some countries, analysts said.
Wet soils and continuous showers delayed field work by about two weeks in the two largest producing countries France and Germany, while Poland, traditionally the third-largest producer, benefited from favourable weather.
In France, where plantings were coming to an end, farmers are expecting the area sown to rebound 6% from a 14-year low hit last year to 402,000 hectares, a similar level as 2022, amid strong prices and after soaked winter crops had to be resown.
But a similar rise in the crop was far from guaranteed, Timothé Masson, analyst for sugar beet growers group CGB said.
"The likelihood to have a good yield is now nearly null because sowings were not done in good conditions and there is a high risk of aphids carrying the yellows virus this year," he said.
An outbreak of yellows disease in France in 2020 had led to a 26% fall in the country's sugar output.
The risk of seeing yellows ravage crops again this year prompted the French government earlier this month to allow farmers to increase the use of two pesticides on crops while Britain issued an emergency authorisation for the use of neonicotinoid seed treatment, Cruiser SB, produced by Swiss agrochemicals group Syngenta.
However, Cruiser SB product was only applied on about 60% of the seeds, leaving a large proportion of the crop unprotected, the head of sugar at Britain's National Farmers Union, James Northen. Meanwhile in France growers said the pesticides cleared were not sufficient enough to protect crops.
In Germany, usually the EU's second largest sugar beet producer, sowings also suffered repeated delays because the ground was too wet.
The beet area was expected to rise just 2% from the 364,000 hectares last season despite high sugar prices, one German analyst said. Long-term supply contracts between farmers and sugar producers tend to limit rises in planted area as factories do not want more than they can process, he said.
In Poland, generally the EU's third largest producer, the sugar beet sowing area was expected to rise to around 272,000 hectares, approximately 2.5% above last year, Rafal Strachota, director of the Polish National Union of Sugar Beet Growers (KZPBC), said.
The weather during sowing was generally favourable in Poland despite some rain and most of the planned area was now planted, he said.
In Britain, British Sugar's Agriculture Director Dan Green said that he expected the crop area to be over 100,000 hectares, slightly ahead of last year.
Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris, Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Nigel Hunt in London; editing by David Evans
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