The international sugar situation and New Zealand’s sugar policy

Abstract

In deciding whether or not there should be established a sugar beet industry in New Zealand, there are many considerations which policy makers need to bear in mind, but there are two major questions which initially must be answered. The first question is "what is the return to the nation on the capital invested in growing and processing sugar beet by comparison with the return to be earned from the same resources used to increase traditional exports for the import of sugar from abroad?" Such an assessment depends not only on the farm management and economic aspects of a sugar beet industry in New Zealand but it also depends on the assumptions which are used as to the price which will have to be paid for imported sugar over the next decade or so and this, then, is the second question which must be answered, what is the likely future course of world sugar prices?