Selected problems of sugar beet growing in Slovakia

Sugar beet is a technical crop of the temperate zone which is predominantly used for the sugar production in our country. In industry it is also utilized for the production of bioethanol and molasses. The use of this crop is significant in pharmacy and forage growing, too. At our territory sugar beet rangs among the cultural crops with the long-time growing tradition and the subsequent processing in the sugar industry. Since the accession of the Slovak Republic into the EU the sugar-making industry in Slovakia has been influenced significantly by the regulations of the Common Organization of Sugar Market which regulates the quantity of produced sugar by the system of the assigned domestic quotas. Recently a slight increase of sugar beet harvesting area as well as sugar beet production has been recorded, however, sugar production has fluctuated. in the sugarbeet season 2013/2014. 190 growers grew sugar beet with the average saccharinity of 16.80 %. Sugar beet was processed in two sugar refineries Považský cukor, Plc. in Trenčianska Teplá and Slovenské cukrovary, Ltd. in Sereď with the processing capacity of more than 10, 000 tonnes of sugar beet per day. Both sugar refineries produced totally 172, 568 tonnes of sugar and they exceeded the production quota by 60, 248.5 tonnes (53.6 %). Our paper deals with the evaluation of the selected economic and marketing indicators of sugar beet growing in 2008 – 2014.