EUROPEAN BEET PLANTINGS SEEN LITTLE CHANGED European sugar beet plantings are expected to show little change from last year, despite recent firmness in world prices, analysts and industry sources said. A Reuter survey of planting intentions showed that while, so far, European Community (EC) growers plan unchanged to lower areas, increases are expected in some Eastern European nations. Trade analysts said their private reports give similar results and do not differ significantly from the first estimate of stagnant 1987 European beet plantings made last week by West German sugar statistician F. O. Licht. Areas may be slightly lower but analysts and agricultural experts said the steady rise in yields resulting from improved seed varieties and better farming techniques could offset this. In recent years, good autumn weather has given yields a late boost, making up for lower areas despite some disappointing starts to growing seasons. Changes in EC areas reflect the extent to which producers will grow so-called "C" sugar for unsubsidised sale to the world market. This is what is produced in excess of the basic area needed to meet the EC "A" and "B" quotas, which receive full and partial price support, respectively. Some analysts said the open row that broke out last week between producers and the EC commission over its export policy could have serious implications for future sugar output. Beet producers have threatened to effectively dump nearly one mln tonnes of white sugar into EC intervention stocks as they feel export subsidies have been too low to compensate for the gap between high EC internal and low world market prices. However, with the EC budget stretched to breaking point, this could give treasury ministers extra resolve in resisting higher guaranteed sugar prices and build a case for a future cut in the basic "A" and "B" quotas, they added. In France, the largest producer of EC quota and non quota sugar, the sugar market intervention board FIRS said first planting intentions indicate an area about the same as last year's 421,000 hectares, nine pct below the previous year. "The basic trend is towards stability," a FIRS spokesman said. Unlike world market raw sugar prices in dollars, white sugar French franc prices are not particularly high and are not encouraging higher planting levels, he said. Beet sugar output last year was 3.37 mln tonnes, with an average yield of 8.00 tonnes per ha, the highest in the EC apart from the Netherlands but below 8.52 the previous year and a five year average 8.11. In West Germany, recent price rises have not altered plans, since planting decisions were taken a few months ago, industry sources said. The farm ministry said a December survey is still valid and plantings should be cut slightly after being trimmed by just under four pct in 1986 when yields were above average. Licht last week estimated West German plantings at a reduced 385,000 hectares against 399,000 last year. British Sugar Plc, the monopoly beet processor, has signed up U.K. Farmers to grow 8.1 mln tonnes of beet. This should yield about 1.25 mln tonnes of whites. Last year's crop equalled the second highest ever at 1.32 mln tonnes. British Sugar has "A" and "B" quotas totalling 1.144 mln tonnes of whites and its "C" output is due to improved yields from more consistent disease-resistant seed types. Recent price rises have not altered Polish plans, Wincenty Nowicki, a deputy director of Cukropol, the Amalgamated Sugar Industry Enterprises, said. World prices are still below Polish production costs and there is no way to convince farmers to increase the area above the already signed contracted level. The national plan, set before prices began to rise, put plantings this year at 460,000 hectares, against 425,000 in 1986, Nowicki said. Last year production was 1.74 mln tonnes. World prices have less impact in Italy than in France or Germany as it is traditionally not an exporter but is geared to the domestic market, an official at the national beet growers' association said. Italian sowings are not yet complete but surveys suggest a drop from last year's 270,000 ha, especially in the north where some farmers have switched to soya. Beet output last season of 15.5 mln tonnes yielded a higher than expected 1.72 mln tonnes of white sugar. Dutch plantings are expected to fall to 130,000 ha from a record 137,600 in 1986 as a new self-imposed quota system comes into force, a spokesman for Centrale Suiker, the second largest Dutch sugar processor, said. The new system aims for an average of around 915,000 tonnes of white sugar and to cut output of "C" sugar. Last year, the Netherlands produced a record 1.2 mln tonnes of white sugar against a combined "A" and "B" quota of only 872,000 tonnes. "The world price of sugar would have to rise much higher than it has done recently to make planned production of "C" sugar really worthwhile," the spokesman said. Western agricultural experts in Moscow said Soviet planting intentions are likely to be unchanged. Licht put this year's Soviet beet area at 3.40 mln ha, against 3.44 mln last year. Hungary is expanding its beet area to 105,000 ha from some 95,000 in 1986, the official MTI news agency said, but diplomats said policy is to balance supply with domestic demand. The Spanish ministry of agriculture said beet sowings are estimated unchanged at 180,000 ha this year. A spokesman for Denmark's largest beet concern, De Danske Sukkerfabrikker A/S, said its 1987 sugar target was unchanged from 1986 at 365,000 tonnes from a steady area of 60,000 ha. In Sweden, where beet is grown just to meet domestic demand, the planted area is seen little changed at 51,000 ha against 51,300 last year, according to a spokesman for sugar company Svenska Sockerfabriks AB. Last year, Irish yields were the lowest for 10 years due to late sowings and the state-run Irish Sugar Plc said the 1987 plantings target is the equivalent of 36,400 hectares, down from 37,600 in 1986.