The area planted with sugar beet and cane in Egypt in the 2011/2012 season will hold steady, an official said in remarks published on Wednesday, dousing talk that lucrative prices offered by the state for wheat would encourage a switch.
Abdel Wahab Allam, president of Egyptian Sugar Crop Council, said he expected farmers to plant 400,000 feddans (168,000 hectares) with sugar beet and 320,000 feddans with cane this season, al-Borsa newspaper reported. Those figures are roughly the same as last year.