So while my daughter was enjoying the East African sunshine and sipping cold drinks on the terrace I was wandering the grey streets of Brussels, visiting the sugar deciders at the European Commission. The EU is one of the few regions that have actually run out of sugar during this bull market. Shelves were empty of sugar before Christmas in Portugal and more recently in Poland and Germany. The only other countries that ran out of sugar that we know about were Pakistan and Bolivia, not the most well run of countries.
So I went to Brussels to try and explain that there was a continuing risk of shortages in Europe and that buyers were still having difficulty in finding supplies. I came out alive - they didn't shoot the messenger, but I was perhaps a little too frank.
The EU is now dependent on sugar imports from countries like Tanzania and it is encouraging to see estates as well run as the one that Charlotte visited. The world needs more food -including sugar - and Africa is one continent with the potential to supply it. There is no reason why the continent should need to import 5 million tonnes of sugar each year and I look forward to seeing the continent become a net food exporter over the next decades.
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