Sugar market plagued by low prices, market saturation and growing surplus

According to the president of the Agricultural Market Agency (ARR), Ryszard Pazura, next year the country will have serious problems with the unregulated sugar market. The director of the Sugar Chamber of Commerce Mieczyslaw Pietrzak, estimates that the situation is dramatic as no one regulates supply and demand for sugar. Additionally, there are no ideas on how this market should be managed. The plan to export the sugar surplus appeared to be a good solution and won the support of the government and sugar producers, but did not come to fruition as no one was willing to pay subsidies needed to export sugar, as prices are depressed on foreign markets. While sugar prices are rapidly falling, the beet root crops looks set to be a very good one, meaning that the market will be deluged by 200,000 tones of surplus sugar which, together with the current 300,000 tones makes up half a million tones of excess sugar that no one wants to buy. Sugar refineries are facing a dramatic situation as they seem likely to be landed with the surplus and many already are in financial dire straits. How this will rebound on farmers has yet to be seen, but the signs are not good. (Gazeta Wyborcza, Nov. 2-3, p. 25) A.Z.