Action on Sugar and Feedback Global urge rethink on UK’s sugar farming and trade policies

02 Nov 2023 --- Agricultural and trade policies are the key to solving the UK’s sugar pollution crisis, which has seen the nation consuming over two-and-a-half times the recommended maximum intake, says a new report by the charity Action on Sugar and the environmental NGO Feedback Global.

The latest report labels the consequences of excessive sugar production, importation, and consumption in the UK as “sugar pollution.”  

Urgent action by the UK government to curb the nation’s sugar intake to address both public health risks and environmental issues was recommended by Krysia Woroniecka, sugar and soils project manager at Feedback Global.

“Production quotas and import tariffs are the key ones that would have the most impact,” Woroniecka tells Food Ingredients First.The current UK policies on sugar production and import undermine public health goals, says Feedback Global.

Agricultural policy measures 
Woroniecka argues that to reduce the staggering effects of sugar pollution, the government’s Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) needs to have nutrition at its core.

Concerning the potential effects on the UK environment due to the essential role of sugar beets in domestic sugar production, Woroniecka emphasizes, “Soil loss is the key one and the threats to food security from topsoil damage is huge. Producing just 1 cm of topsoil takes 200–400 years — for this reason, it is considered a non-renewable resource.”

“Yet the process of harvesting sugar beet can lift hundreds of thousands of tons of topsoil from UK fields every year, in the form of soil tare, which is caused by the soil clinging to the beet and machinery during harvest. All root crops involve soil loss from crop harvesting.”

“Farmers need financial support to return to their identity as food producers. It costs more to grow vegetables than sugar because of the labor and irrigation involved, so farmers need help.”

She explains that farmers choose to grow the problematic sugar beets because of the guaranteed price relative to selling vegetables to supermarkets. “Supermarkets pay farmers very little and pass all the risk onto them, so farmers must be given financial help to create their own routes to market — selling directly to consumers.”

“The decision of the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to repeatedly grant sugar beet farmers permission to use banned pesticides to grow sugar beet is motivated solely to uphold sugar beet yields, the beneficiary of which is the monopoly beet refiner, British Sugar (and not the farmers as they are already in contracts with British Sugar and are compensated for yield losses).”

“The current sugar supply levels have not been created in a policy vacuum. Defra and the Department for Business and Trade have undermined health policies to reduce sugar consumption. Our policy suggestion to reintroduce sugar beet quotas is bold. Still, we must shine a light on the current level of policy interference in this area and show that it is heavily skewed away from public health.”

Farmers need financial support to move on from sugar beet farming to other crops.

Farmers need financial support to move on from sugar beet farming to other crops.

Sugar imports and tariffs 
To achieve this, more than curbing domestic sugar beet production is needed; the report outlines the need to curb imports as well. “Import tariffs are essentially what is being removed by the Autonomous Tariff Quota (ATQ), while production quotas ended in 2017,” says Woroniecka.

She tells us that many parliamentarians would see the suggested policy proposals as “too controlling,” not realizing that “ Defra and the Department for Business and Trade continue to make active choices to fuel the massive over-supply of sugar to the UK population.”

“They do this through the brand new ATQ that has resulted in increased imports from Brazil and Australia, with further ATQ expansions being decided on right now that would see further import increases. Because Tate and Lyle Sugars are a monopoly importer of raw cane sugar, these ATQs amount to a direct subsidy and Tate and Lyle Sugars may significantly influence these decisions.”

 “Getting industry away from the policy-making table is important if we are to see progress,” she asserts.

By Milana Nikolova