Helen Rumbelow in the Times sets out the lunacy of the EU policy on sugar, and how it affects Africa:
During the Napoleonic Wars, Nelson blockaded sugar exports from the West Indies. This was a disaster for Napoleon — the French literally could not eat cake, as sugar cane does not grow in cold European climes. So Napoleon offered a cash prize to anyone who could crystallize sugar from beets, which was then used as animal feed. It was won by a German chemist, but the process is still laborious and costly compared to sugar cane, which is why Napoleon had to subsidise his farmers. To this day the EU has to spend €3.30 in subsidies to export sugar worth €1. If trade barriers were lifted tomorrow, European sugar farmers would go out of business.
Does this sound crazy to you? That you as a British consumer pay extra (in taxes and the high price of sugar) to prop up a crop that Europe does not grow very well, but is so oversubsidised it is destroying the industries in countries where it grows so abundantly? And all because a short Frenchman’s ambitions got out of control?
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