The sugar beet harvest this year will be at a comparable level to 2018. This is apparent from the annual harvest estimate by Statistics Netherlands.
It is expected that a total of 6,5 million tons of sugar beets will be harvested this year. This means that, just like last year, the yield is much lower than in 2017 when the sugar beet harvest was 8 million tons.
Higher hectare yield
The sugar beet area has shrunk by 7% this year to 79,2 thousand hectares (85,2 thousand hectares in 2018). However, the yield per hectare is estimated to be much higher. CBS goes into the harvest estimate from an 8% increase to an average of 82,4 tons per hectare.
That is slightly more than the average of the previous 10 years, which was 81,2 tons per hectare. Only in 2014 and 2017 were the hectare yields for sugar beets much higher, 90,8 and 93,3 tonnes per hectare respectively.
Image confirmed
The picture that Statistics Netherlands now paints corresponds with the expected sugar yield Sugar Union. The data published by the company in mid-October showed a yield of 82 tons per hectare.