The world’s sugar farmers have to limit their sugar output and find other uses for sugar cane and beet to stabilise world sugar prices, delegates at an international growers’ conference in Durban decided. The World Association of Beet and Cane Growers (WABCG) discussed how adverse weather, disease and over-production was hurting farmers, and threats from Australia to quit the body unless its calls for market liberalisation were heard. But outgoing WABCG president Erik Thiesen expressed doubts over a short-term solution to liberalisation: “The market will be freer in the future, but it will never be completely free,” he said. “There are too many people depending on it in too many parts of the world. It will be impossible to liberalise this market.” Preliminary indications were that the deficit could be 3.5m tonnes and lead to a 20% reduction in the world sugar stocks, currently standing at around 16m tonnes. The challenge for sugar farmers in the coming year, said Thiesen, was to bring production down to levels that matched international consumption which would then steady world prices.