Sugar has always been a highly political and controversial commodity, but never more so than at the present time. The uneasy rivalry between cane and beet sugar, the products of tropical and temperate countries respectively, is giving way to open conflict.

The sugar industry is a major provider of jobs and income for sugar-exporting countries in Africa. The lower sugar prices that were caused by the recent liberalisation of the EU sugar market may not only jeopardise economic development in those countries, but the reforms also create difficulties...