French sugar beet growers CGB said on Friday they expected the French crop to fall to 33.1 million tonnes in 2012 due to both a drop in area and yield. They did not give a comparative figure for 2011 but the farm ministry last month put last year's crop at 37.3 million tonnes. CGB based its estimate on an area of at 385,000 hectares and a yield of 86 tonnes per hectare, assuming a sugar content of 16 percent.

The growers group said the beet crop had suffered from adverse weather during growth, as opposed to the 2011 crop that benefited from favourable conditions with a warm spring followed by regular summer rainfall. "While sowings were done in normal conditions, the combination of lack of sun, drought and excessive rainfall hampered beet development," the CGB said about this year's crop. About 1,500 hectares remained to be harvested in water-logged fields in far north France, Alain Jeanroy, director of CGB, told a news conference. He hoped weather would allow these fields to be harvested before sugar mills end their production season in early January.

Copyright Reuters, 2012