Purchasing centers and mass distribution stores targeted. Farmers continue their mobilization. On Wednesday, November 20, dozens of tractors blocked the commercial port of Bordeaux, while the blockage of a highway between France and Spain was lifted. The agricultural world is opposed to the signing of the treaty with Mercosur. The text worries the French sugar industry, already weakened by the import of Ukrainian sugar and the poor beet harvests this year.
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Jean Lefevre’s beet field is still waterlogged in Ognes; it rained almost twice as much this year as in 2023. “ The harvests are very bad. Usually, we make between 85 and 90 tonnes of beets per hectare and, this year, 40 to 50 tonnes per hectare, per year. », he explains to our special correspondent in Oise, Nicolas Feldmann.
Beyond climatic hazards, Jean Lefevre fears the adoption of the treaty with the Mercosurthe free trade agreement negotiated between the European Union and five Latin American countries. It plans to import 190,000 tonnes of sugar from Latin America.
The incomprehension of French beet producers
“ We are a sugar producer in France. Why are we going to add the import of sugar into a contract, when we export it? What I expect from the State is no to Mercosur, limits on imports on products that do not correspond to our production standards and our social standards… », explains Jean Lefevre.
Because for two years, French producers have already had to deal with the arrival of Ukrainian sugar on the European market. Thirteen times more came in than before the war against Russia.
“ To help Ukraine, and this is quite normal, we opened the borders. But this caused an uncontrolled influx. It’s quite simply the law of supply and demand: if we put more volumes on a mature market, which does not demand more volume, mechanically, prices fall », notes Timothée Masson, market expert at the General Confederation of Beet Planters.
The industry expects a 25% drop in the price of beet this year.
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