Tag Archives: sugar

More supply management demanded in COMAGRI single CMO report

Michel Dantin’s draft COMAGRI report on the single Common Market Organisation regulation would allow producer organisations greater powers to manage supply particularly in crisis situations.

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The political economy of eliminating sugar quotas in 2015

Sugar producers and processers line up against sugar users in the debate on eliminating sugar quotas in 2015.

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Leaked Commission figures sound death knell for biodiesel

Leaked figures for the Commission’s default values for carbon emissions from biofuels including indirect land use change suggest biodiesel might no longer be eligible to be counted against the EU’s renewable transport energy target.

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Agricultural Council discusses the single CMO

The first Agricultural Council under the Danish Presidency chaired by Danish Agriculture Minister Mette Gjerskov discussed the Commission’s proposed single CMO regulation last Monday. Divisions were evident over sugar quotas, but a positive sign was the number of ministers who expressly opposed the continued use of export subsidies.

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Commission projects unchanged sugar market following quota elimination

The Commission’s expectations for the EU sugar market following the end of sugar quotas in 2015 are contained in its market outlook to 2020 publication published last month. The elimination of quotas is expected to have a negligible impact on the EU sugar market.

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Fraud and the CAP

The budget monitoring website FollowTheMoney.eu is serialising a three part survey of the long history of fraud in the Common Agricultural Policy.

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Keeping an eye on the sugar market

Sugar did not experience the massive price spike in 2007-08 of other commodities, but has been making up for this with a tremendous increase in prices in 2009, driven by poor harvests in Brazil (the world’s largest producer) and strong import demand in India (the world’s largest importer). Raw sugar prices have risen from around 10 USc/lb in May 2008 to over 27 USc/lb currently, and market analysts expect further increases in the coming months.

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The 2006 EU sugar reform in review

Two interesting papers on EU sugar policy recently crossed my desk. One is an account of the ‘new’ sugar regime after the 2006 reform by three legal academics from the University of Barcelona, in which they also examine whether the reformed regime is likely to be compatible with any agreement from the Doha Round negotiations. [...]

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Council agrees reform of the sugar reform

The Council agreed yesterday the Commission’s proposals to improve the attractiveness of the sugar industry restructuring scheme in order to meet the Commission’s objective of a reduction in 6 million tonnes of sugar quota by the end of the four year transition period 2006-2010 for the current EU sugar reform. As noted in a previous [...]

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Biofuels come to rescue of EU sugar market in medium-term

DG Agri published its annual Prospects for Agricultural Markets and Income in the EU for the period 2007 through 2014 at the end of July. In this post I discuss the Commission’s latest view on the outlook for the EU sugar market. The EU’s sugar market reform agreed in November 2005 has been less than [...]

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Sugar reform hits trouble

Last year’s sugar reform has hit trouble and it’s a familiar story: too much sugar is still being produced in the EU. 2007 production plans show that quotas have only fallen by 2.2 million tonnes over the first two years, well below the 5-6 million tonne target.

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