I read in the FT this morning that there is trouble in the world of sugar beet, a crop which accounts for around half our sugar consumption, is concentrated in the east midlands - that is to say places like Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire - and which is all processed by just the one factory.
Some of this trouble is down to new pests and some of this is down to the factory not paying enough, but, whatever the cause, it seems that farmers are growing less of the stuff, and some are pulling out of it altogether. Which must mean that we are importing more of the stuff - which seems a pity given our balance of payments problems. Problems which mean, in effect, that we are slowly but surely falling into the clutches of people with lots of cash to lend - like the Chinese and the Saudis. With these last presumably doing something tricky about the Prophet's ban on charging interest.
By way of an illustration of sugar beet, Bing turned up the rather good one included above, from Azerbaijan, where it seems there is a major drive on to promote the crop. Maybe that is where we will be importing the stuff from. Perhaps we can sell them the machinery which we no longer need?
The Azer News site also tells me 'that the Ordinary of the Apostolic Prefecture of the Roman Catholic Church in the country, Vladimir Fekete, has said that Azerbaijan needs to carry out the restoration of its lands liberated from Armenian occupation during the 44-day war in the autumn of 2020'. Presumably all part of the ongoing rows and worse in that part of the world between members of the Muslim, Armenian and Catholic churches. Much worse than those between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
PS: amused that even a very foreign organ like the Azer News manages to include advertisements which are clearly tuned to my activity on the Internet. Google rules even there!
Reference 1: https://www.azernews.az/.
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