"In our region, we lost 15% of the (sugar beet) area (this year)," said Alexandre Pele, who has a 240 hectare farm in central France. Since January's court ruling banning exemptions, the area devoted to growing sugar beet in France, the EU's largest sugar grower, has hit a 14 year low. The EU beet acreage has already fallen 17% percent since the 2018 neonics ruling, EU data shows. A shrinking sugar beet sector could hit other staple crops because farmers need to plant alternates like sugar beet or oilseeds on their wheat, barley and corn fields every other year in order to maintain soil health. "If I no longer have sugar beet it would be a real loss."

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Persons: Alexandre Pele, Pele, We’ve, Tereos, Noa Simon Delso, KWS, Andrew Blenkiron, Maytaal Angel, Elaine Hardcastle Organizations: Farmers, Reuters, EU, European, European Commission, Thomson Locations: France, PARIS, Europe, Britain, Brussels, England