NFU and British Sugar beet price talks hit a deadlock

The NFU and British Sugar are at loggerheads over the processor’s beet pricing offer for the 2024-25 crop, amid reports it is lower than this year’s price of £40/t.

NFU Sugar Board chairman Michael Sly wrote to beet growers this week telling them, in his view, British Sugar’s beet price offer for the 2024-25 season was “wholly inadequate”.

The processor’s most recent contract offer is believed to be markedly less than the £40/t for the 2023 crop – despite a significant increase in European and world sugar prices.

See also: Belated early delivery allowance frustrates sugar beet growers

Mr Sly said: “We believe the increased sugar value isn’t reflected in the terms currently offered by British Sugar and consider that if these terms were to be accepted, it would leave growers, and ultimately our industry, weaker in the long term.”

Farmers Weekly understands from beet growers that area managers from British Sugar have been telling them their 2024-25 beet price offer will be a minimum of £37.50/t, but they are not prepared to pay £40/t.

£40/t agreement

Last year, Mr Sly was lauded within the beet growing industry after NFU Sugar managed to negotiate a beet price of £40/t with British Sugar for the 2023-24 crop – a 48% increase on the previous year.

Farm business consultant Charles Whitaker, from Brown & Co, has a number of sugar beet growers in eastern England among his clients.

Mr Whitaker told the Farmers Weekly Podcast he could see no reason why the sugar beet price for 2024-25 should be any less than it was this year, given the ongoing volatility in input costs, likelihood of further extreme weather events and the strong market.

“There is scope for it [the 2024 sugar beet price] to be higher in terms of what the market is doing,” he said.

Robert Law, a mixed farmer who grows sugar beet at Chrishall Grange Farm, in Royston, Cambridgeshire, asked: “If I am selling futures for £63/t, why on earth should I be told to accept £37.50/t?”

Processor response

British Sugar says it is committed to the home-grown sugar beet industry and it has been in negotiations with NFU Sugar throughout the summer over the 2024-25 beet price.

Dan Green, agriculture director at British Sugar, said: “We are confident our current proposal offers a very attractive return to growers, with a competitive margin when compared to other crops.

“We have negotiated in good faith and we will continue to work extremely hard to come to an agreed position as we value the role of NFU Sugar and the work we do together.

“Our aim is to agree a price as soon as possible to help growers with their cropping decisions.”