The French farm ministry forecast on Monday this year's sugar beet crop at 30.4 million tonnes, down 13.3 percent on last year, in its first production estimate for the 2010 crop. Average yield was put at 79.82 tonnes per hectare, down from 93.9 tonnes in 2009.
The area estimate was left unchanged from last month at 381,000 hectares, up from 374,000 last year. The ministry also gave a first estimate for sugar content in this year's crop, projecting it at 17.6 percent, down from 19.5 percent in 2009. This compares with sugar content of 15.6 percent estimated by sugar manufacturers' association SNFS in its latest test of the 2010 crop.