STUDY ON THE PRODUCTION AND VALORIZATION OF SUGAR BEET IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Sugar is an important food in the diet, and ensuring a sufficient production of sugar beet is important for food safety. At the level of the European Union, the sugar industry is a strategic sector, having economic, social and environmental importance being part of the CMO (common organization of the markets) with a safe role for agricultural markets. At the same time, the sugar market in the European Union is one of the best regulated markets and was based on the existence of well-established market shares, pricing and export regulation until 2017. Market shares were eliminated on October 1, 2017, this measure influencing both the situation of production and processing of sugar beet. In this paper we aim to analyze how the elimination of quotas in 2017 has led to changes at EU level in terms of sugar beet production, but also in terms of raw material and product prices finished, starting from statistical data provided by Eurostat, ITC and the National Institute of Statistics, data that were collected, pre elaborated and analyzed and which were the basis of the study. The conclusions were formulated based on the analysis performed and highlighted the fact that in the European Union the largest producers of sugar beet are countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland. At the same time, in the European Union there is a strong refining sector that processes both sugar beet produced within the union, but also sugar cane that comes from imports.