Sugar firm and beet growers disagree
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• The row over British Sugar's plans to reorganise its transport fleet is expected to go to arbitration where the company and beet growers can try to thrash out an agreement.
Hundreds of hauliers who collect the beet from farms face an uncertain future after talks between the monopoly sugar processor and the growers' representative, the National Farmers' Union, broke down.
The process of appointing an arbitrator should begin this week and might mean that British Sugar will revert to the hard-line position of insisting on the centralisation of its beet transport.
But the NFU says growers do not want to give any more power to British Sugar.
Currently, the 9,000 farmers arrange their own haulage to British Sugar factories and collect a transport allowance worth £20 million a year.
British Sugar wants to organise the operation centrally in a move that could see the company operating hundreds of its own trucks just for the harvest period.
in the latest offer the company agreed to give up its transport demands but that was rejected by the NFU.
British Sugar has now written to the growers to explain what is happening.
A spokesman for British Sugar also confirms that company representatives are travelling around the country and meeting at least two growers a day to keep them informed of the situation.