Some Aspects of Sugar Beet Production in England, 1945–1985

Abstract

Sugar beet occupies only a minor proportion of the total area of agricultural land in Britain, but it is of major importance to mixed cropping farms in the Eastern Counties of England, where soil and climate combine to give ideal growing conditions. This region produces more than half the annual United Kingdom output, and forms part of the major beet producing area in the European Community, which stretches from the Ile de France and Champagne-Ardenne in France, through southern Belgium to the western regions of the Netherlands. This paper is based on an extensive series of studies of beet production and reports on farming in the Eastern Counties of England, prepared since the mid-1920s by the Farm Economics Branch, and later by the Agricultural Economics Unit, of the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge. After sketching the historical background, it discusses some of the more significant developments – in crop husbandry, structural change, in the substitution of labour for capital and specialisation, and accession to the European Community – which took place in the four decades of unprecedented progress up to 1985.