The trade and industry secretary, Patricia Hewitt, has described the situation in which European consumers support European farmers by paying three times world prices for sugar as "scandalous".
But privately Whitehall officials fear that the UK's efforts to get the developing world greater access to Europe may be derailed by an alliance between beet growers, the sugar processing industry and the small group of poor countries currently allowed a tiny slice of the EU market.
Today Robert Sturdy, the Conservative MEP for East Anglia, the stronghold of the sugar beet production, will begin a campaign to water down the reforms, backed by British Sugar, which has a monopoly on processing beet sugar in the UK.
Oxfam estimates that British Sugar made a profit of £77m in 2002 from its position as the only processor in a market where prices are fixed.
Mr Sturdy has won support for his campaign from the small group of African and Caribbean countries, led by Mauritius, which currently supply a small fraction of the European market.
Clare Wenner, of British Sugar said the company was on the side of poor countries worried about the impact of the reform on their access to the high-priced sugar market.
"You couldn't put much between our positions," she said.
But aid agencies are afraid that the sugar lobby will succeed in preventing other poor countries getting access to Europe's market.
"The British sugar lobby is pretending to be the friend of the developing world in a desperate attempt to preserve their own highly lucrative interests," said Matt Griffith, a trade policy adviser at the Roman Catholic aid agency Cafod.
Ms Hewitt has described the sugar regime as one of the most scandalous aspects of Europe's heavily criticised common agricultural policy and a major obstacle to restarting the stalled world trade talks.
Europe currently dumps its sugar mountain on world markets at below production costs, bankrupting more efficient farmers in the developing world.
The price difference is met by a combination of EU taxpayers' money and transfers from farmers, allowing the industry to claim that the export subsidy is about half its actual level.
"We've got a system which provides very limited opportunities to a small group of countries, that generates vast surpluses which destroy international markets, at huge cost of farmers in the poor world and all for the greater good of British Sugar and the sugar beet lobby," said Kevin Watkins, head of trade at Oxfam.
The agencies fear that opposition from the highly organised sugar lobby, which has formed an alliance of convenience with a small group of developing countries will stymie the reform attempts.
"This is the most powerful agro-industrial lobby group attempting to systematically mislead public opinion to maintain their monopoly," Mr Watkins said.
The poorest developing countries favour the continued management of the European union's sugar market so they can gain access to its guaranteed high prices.
Mr Sturdy says the winner of reforms would be Brazil, not the poorest countries.
"Thousands of jobs could be lost if farmers could no longer afford to grow beet," he said.
