Yes. Like the parents of Susano, I also come from a region where sugar beets are very important and this is right.Sugar beets demand a high level of technological development before it can be produced on large scale, beside that it took years of focused "breeding" before it had been developed from the original form. At last sugar beet need to be grown in quite rich soil. While it will likely still be developed, it will be unlikely to happen before a rather late point.
I'm glad this discussion was necro'd because I think a lot of northern industrialization was helped by capital from things in the New World. I don't think it's dependent on it, but say capital is reduced by 20-25% just from lack of NW stuff let alone knock off effects. That's going to retard industrial progress significantly. I think the Mediterranean nations will be more important and perhaps not lose out so badly to the northern nations (I'm thinking in particular the German areas). Perhaps those northern areas will become resource exporters to more developed processing centers in the south though I think you'd need to struggle to end up that way.