MORE than 200 sugar beet growers were today expected to meet NFU and British Sugar officials amid fears that sweeping reforms could put thousands of jobs at risk.

European Commission proposals could see a cut of up to 16pc in UK sugar beet production and significant price cuts.

The threat is in response to concern about the effects of the "dumping" of surplus European sugar on world markets.

Yorkshire growers attending today's meeting at Askham Bryan College were to be urged to lobby ministers, MPs, MEPs and regional development agencies about the proposals.

The meeting follows another last Friday between Mike Blacker, NFU national sugar beet chairman, and Richard Corbett and Terry Wynn, Labour Euro MPs.

The region's 1,400 producers accept that some reform is necessary to ensure a sustainable European sugar industry in the long term, but the scale of the proposals threatens to cripple one of the real success stories of British agriculture in recent years.

Mr Blacker, who farms at Newton on Ouse near York, believes the implications of the proposed reforms have not been thought through.

"It's suggested that sweeping reforms are needed to meet World Trade Organisation agreements," he said, "but reality is never that simple or straightforward and the worry is that UK producers will pay the price for reforms designed to target over-protected producers in other parts of the EU."

Britain is already contributing to fair trade targets, resisting the temptation to become self-sufficient in sugar. The UK is unique in that half its sugar requirements are already imported - much of it from developing countries in the Caribbean, parts of Africa and the Pacific region.

More than £1bn has also been invested in the sugar sector since 1980 to ensure that the British industry is one of the most efficient and environmentally-friendly in the world.

"Sugar beet is a wonderful crop that is transformed into a wide range of sustainable products from animal feed to fuel," said Mr Blacker. "Indeed, an area half the size of a football pitch planted with sugar beet could generate enough fuel to run a family car for a year."

"Once the sugar has been extracted, the beet is sold as a high energy animal feed; molasses is used by the fermentation industry; lime is used for soil conditioning and even the soil and rock delivered with the sugar beet is recycled and reused.

"There is absolutely no waste. Even the green tops of the plant are used as animal feed.

"Sugar beet is largely produced on family farms and a total of 20,000 jobs nationwide are dependent in some way on the industry. More than 2,000 of these jobs are on Yorkshire farms alone.

"This industry is one we want to keep in this country, so it's vital that the Government supports our case, rather than sacrificing us to these sweeping reforms.

"The proposals on the table are not set in tablets of stone so now is our chance to influence the outcome.