In a crowded field, the European Union's support for its sugar farmers is perhaps the silliest agricultural subsidy in the rich world. Yesterday's proposal by Mariann Fischer Boel, the agriculture commissioner, that the support price should be cut by an impressively ambitious 39 per cent, is about four decades overdue.

The sugar regime had to change, and Ms Fischer Boel deserves great credit for taking on Europe's ludicrously protectionist sugar lobby. As she points out, as the rest of European farming has been reformed (albeit slowly and inadequately) it looks increasingly ridiculous to reward woefully uncompetitive domestic sugar farmers with prices three times world levels. Cane from hot countries, not beet from cold, is the future of world sugar.