EUROPEAN BEET PLANTINGS SEEN LITTLE CHANGED

  European sugar beet plantings are
  expected to show little change from last year, despite recent
  firmness in world prices, analysts and industry sources said.
      A Reuter survey of planting intentions showed that while,
  so far, European Community (EC) growers plan unchanged to lower
  areas, increases are expected in some Eastern European nations.
      Trade analysts said their private reports give similar
  results and do not differ significantly from the first estimate
  of stagnant 1987 European beet plantings made last week by West
  German sugar statistician F. O. Licht.
      Areas may be slightly lower but analysts and agricultural
  experts said the steady rise in yields resulting from improved
  seed varieties and better farming techniques could offset this.
  In recent years, good autumn weather has given yields a late
  boost, making up for lower areas despite some disappointing
  starts to growing seasons.
      Changes in EC areas reflect the extent to which producers
  will grow so-called "C" sugar for unsubsidised sale to the world
  market. This is what is produced in excess of the basic area
  needed to meet the EC "A" and "B" quotas, which receive full and
  partial price support, respectively.
      Some analysts said the open row that broke out last week
  between producers and the EC commission over its export policy
  could have serious implications for future sugar output.
      Beet producers have threatened to effectively dump nearly
  one mln tonnes of white sugar into EC intervention stocks as
  they feel export subsidies have been too low to compensate for
  the gap between high EC internal and low world market prices.
      However, with the EC budget stretched to breaking point,
  this could give treasury ministers extra resolve in resisting
  higher guaranteed sugar prices and build a case for a future
  cut in the basic "A" and "B" quotas, they added.
      In France, the largest producer of EC quota and non quota
  sugar, the sugar market intervention board FIRS said first
  planting intentions indicate an area about the same as last
  year's 421,000 hectares, nine pct below the previous year.
      "The basic trend is towards stability," a FIRS spokesman
  said. Unlike world market raw sugar prices in dollars, white
  sugar French franc prices are not particularly high and are not
  encouraging higher planting levels, he said. Beet sugar output
  last year was 3.37 mln tonnes, with an average yield of 8.00
  tonnes per ha, the highest in the EC apart from the Netherlands
  but below 8.52 the previous year and a five year average 8.11.
      In West Germany, recent price rises have not altered plans,
  since planting decisions were taken a few months ago, industry
  sources said. The farm ministry said a December survey is still
  valid and plantings should be cut slightly after being trimmed
  by just under four pct in 1986 when yields were above average.
      Licht last week estimated West German plantings at a
  reduced 385,000 hectares against 399,000 last year.
      British Sugar Plc, the monopoly beet processor, has signed
  up U.K. Farmers to grow 8.1 mln tonnes of beet. This should
  yield about 1.25 mln tonnes of whites. Last year's crop
  equalled the second highest ever at 1.32 mln tonnes.
      British Sugar has "A" and "B" quotas totalling 1.144 mln tonnes
  of whites and its "C" output is due to improved yields from more
  consistent disease-resistant seed types.
      Recent price rises have not altered Polish plans, Wincenty
  Nowicki, a deputy director of Cukropol, the Amalgamated Sugar
  Industry Enterprises, said. World prices are still below Polish
  production costs and there is no way to convince farmers to
  increase the area above the already signed contracted level.
      The national plan, set before prices began to rise, put
  plantings this year at 460,000 hectares, against 425,000 in
  1986, Nowicki said. Last year production was 1.74 mln tonnes.
      World prices have less impact in Italy than in France or
  Germany as it is traditionally not an exporter but is geared to
  the domestic market, an official at the national beet growers'
  association said. Italian sowings are not yet complete but
  surveys suggest a drop from last year's 270,000 ha, especially
  in the north where some farmers have switched to soya.
      Beet output last season of 15.5 mln tonnes yielded a higher
  than expected 1.72 mln tonnes of white sugar.
      Dutch plantings are expected to fall to 130,000 ha from a
  record 137,600 in 1986 as a new self-imposed quota system comes
  into force, a spokesman for Centrale Suiker, the second largest
  Dutch sugar processor, said.
      The new system aims for an average of around 915,000 tonnes
  of white sugar and to cut output of "C" sugar. Last year, the
  Netherlands produced a record 1.2 mln tonnes of white sugar
  against a combined "A" and "B" quota of only 872,000 tonnes.
      "The world price of sugar would have to rise much higher
  than it has done recently to make planned production of "C" sugar
  really worthwhile," the spokesman said.
      Western agricultural experts in Moscow said Soviet planting
  intentions are likely to be unchanged. Licht put this year's
  Soviet beet area at 3.40 mln ha, against 3.44 mln last year.
      Hungary is expanding its beet area to 105,000 ha from some
  95,000 in 1986, the official MTI news agency said, but
  diplomats said policy is to balance supply with domestic
  demand.
      The Spanish ministry of agriculture said beet sowings are
  estimated unchanged at 180,000 ha this year.
      A spokesman for Denmark's largest beet concern, De Danske
  Sukkerfabrikker A/S, said its 1987 sugar target was unchanged
  from 1986 at 365,000 tonnes from a steady area of 60,000 ha.
      In Sweden, where beet is grown just to meet domestic
  demand, the planted area is seen little changed at 51,000 ha
  against 51,300 last year, according to a spokesman for sugar
  company Svenska Sockerfabriks AB.
      Last year, Irish yields were the lowest for 10 years due to
  late sowings and the state-run Irish Sugar Plc said the 1987
  plantings target is the equivalent of 36,400 hectares, down
  from 37,600 in 1986.
  

