British Sugar's new agriculture director hopes to rebuild strained relationships with East Anglia's beet growers through a new collaborative partnership.
Daniel Green has taken on the key role at a time of significant challenges for the region's sugar beet sector.
Rising costs, extreme weather, crop virus risks and low prices have prompted recent criticisms from farmers that the processor has not been doing enough to balance the risk and rewards of growing the crop.
But Mr Green said the company wants to be at the heart of an industry-wide effort to improve sugar beet's resilience and viability.
He said his family farming background, allied with almost 20 years of operational experience with British Sugar, gave him a "unique perspective" on the sector.
And now he is gathering views from across the supply chain after the launch of the firm's Field to Factory initiative - which has already surveyed 2,500 growers to find a united way forward.
"I grew up on my family farm, so I have had that link into the sugar beet industry for many years, and I understand the industry internally, so I have a unique perspective in that sense," he said.
"I think I have got good empathy for how the growers are feeling and what they have been through in recent times, hence some of those comments that we have seen out there.
"Now I am looking forward to getting stuck in and partnering with our growers.
"We kicked off some work a couple of weeks ago called the Field to Factory partnership.
"We really do want to bring external views into the business, understand them, and work with everybody across the industry - not just the growers, but the harvesting contractors, the hauliers - to throw around some ideas on what we should focus on.
"So we really are trying to bring the outside in, more than we have done in recent times."
Pesticide authorisation
One particular challenge is virus yellows, a potentially devastating crop disease whose threat has increased in the absence of neonicotinoid pesticides, previously used to kill the virus-carrying aphids, but now banned due to fears over their impact on the health of bees.
This week, an emergency temporary authorisation to use the seed treatment - under strict conditions - was triggered after scientific models forecast a 68.9pc incidence of virus yellows in 2022 following the mild winter.
The decision sparked an angry response from environmental campaigners, but Mr Green said it was an important short-term tool while the industry sought longer-term scientific solutions.
"None of us want to use the neonicotinoids, so we do need to find alternatives to that," he said.
"We jointly fund the BBRO (British Beet Research Organisation) and they are working hard to find some solutions and opportunities, through various trials and plant breeding, to all those issues we face through virus yellows.
"Plant resistance is one way of managing it, but there are other ways such as through adding beneficial insects to your crop. It is very much a science-led approach."
In the more immediate future, he said it was essential that all growers followed the strict conditions underpinning the emergency neonicotinoid authorisation - particularly the maximum seed rates, the targeted use of herbicides to minimise flowering weeds and a 32-month restriction on growing flowering crops after drilling treated sugar beet.
Campaign success
Following last year's virus-hit season, the 2021/22 sugar campaign has seen better harvesting conditions, bringing expected yields back to normal, at around 80 tonnes per hectare.
The Bury St Edmunds factory in Suffolk completed its campaign on February 18, while the two Norfolk factories at Wissington and Cantley will close their beet intake on March 4 and March 8 respectively, leaving the Newark site to complete the season in April.
"Compared to last year, when we saw the real dire impact of virus yellows across a large proportion of the area, this year's crop has been much better," said Mr Green.
But he added that while the mild winter had helped harvesting conditions, it had created problems for next year's crop, as more virus-carrying aphids have survived into spring.
Mr Green, whose family farms between King's Lynn and Wisbech, studied chemical engineering before joining British Sugar in 2003. He carried out several roles, most recently as site general manager at Cantley.
He was appointed as agriculture director following last month's departure of Peter Watson.
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