The farmers that chose to plant sugar beet this year harvested 1.2 million tons, the best harvest in fifteen years. The growth was because of the 28% higher yield, since the area of land allocated to beet was only slightly larger.
Romania is now using 10% of the area allocated to sugar beet crops in 1990, and the decline came with the closing of its sugar plants.
Sugar plants use both locally sourced beet and imported sugar cane. Sugar production in Romania is dominated by multinationals like Agrana (Austria), Pfeifer&Langen (Germany) and Tereos (France).
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)