Sugar growers warned over compensation after freeze

Talks are ongoing about the long-term lessons but the only immediate assistance was in a British Sugar offer which the NFU accepted and passed on to a meeting in Goole on Wednesday, attended by about 70 growers for the Newark factory and chaired by Chris Durdy, chairman of the NFU’s regional sugar board.

The farmers included many who had lost half or more of their sugarbeets to rot problems, caused by a mild January after a deep-frozen December. Two told the Yorkshire Post they had lost £7,000-£8,000 and one had a neighbour who lost £50,000.

British Sugar was represented by Newark factory manager David Dunning, but he was there only as an observer, and would not comment.

The company message was that it would waive its rules, so growers would not have their quotas for the next season reduced as a penalty for failure to hit this season’s targets.

Farmers who did not get enough crop to pay for what they owe British Sugar for seed will be allowed to defer the seed debt, interest-free.

And to encourage a fresh start this spring, British Sugar will refund half the cost of the seed planted to all farmers who deliver their contracted tonnage over 2011-2012 – an offer equivalent to a bit over £1 a tonne.

The Goole meeting, like a bigger one in Lincoln which preceded it, was dominated by demands for British Sugar to shorten its processing season or take a share of the risk involved in keeping beets in the ground through December, January and February.

British Sugar used to have more factories – including one at York – and had the crop processed by Christmas. Now it has a smaller number, running a longer ‘campaign’, and ekes the delivery of beets out from September to March.

It is possible to lift the roots early and store them, but they lose sugar content, so there is a cash penalty.

Since the last of the factory closures, winters have been relatively mild and storing beets in the ground has paid off.

But William Martin, chairman of the NFU Sugar Board, told the Goole meeting: “This time the chickens have come home to roost big time. If we are going to have any confidence in the future of this crop, we need some consideration of a situation which means growers share the risks without sharing the rewards. We do not want to be back in the same position in 12 months.”

However, the NFU sugar team came under some criticism itself. Its new four-year deal for growers was designed to link beet prices to costs and to the prices of alternative crops, including winter wheat. But the timing of application of the formula was unlucky and even before the frost disaster, farmers were getting a relatively low £23.60 a tonne this winter.

Mr Martin, a grower from Norfolk, said the formula should ensure farmers got more over the next three years to make up for a poor return on delivered tonnage this year. The NFU team was trying to persuade British Sugar to stump up a bit in advance. The NFU was also arguing that bonuses for deliveries after Christmas should go up, in future, to take account of the risk of keeping crops in the ground.

There was not much chance of direct compensation for this winter’s losses. However, there was a case to be argued on behalf of a small number of growers who lifted crops on British Sugar’s advice and then could not deliver them because of a breakdown at the Newark factory.

Martin Howarth, director of policy for the NFU, said they had to take care not to end up asking for a rewrite of the deal they had only just made.

And one farmer commented after the meeting: “A lot of growers have had to plough in carrots and cauliflowers and sprouts, because of similar problems, and there is no compensation for them.”

[email protected]