Coughlan aims to clarify sugar reforms
However, in the event of the quota being renounced for the second year, the levy will not be payable in that and subsequent years.
This has been clarified by the European Commission, according to Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan, who met with EU Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel in Brussels yesterday.
The need to provide beet growers and the sugar industry in Ireland with as much clarity as possible following the EU reform of the sector was the focus of the top level talks.
However, last night the IFA Sugar Beet Committee chairman Peadar Jordan said the minister’s statement confirmed a restructuring levy of €25m will have to be paid if sugar beet is grown in 2006. The outcome was a catastrophe for the industry and a black day for the country’s 3,700 sugar beet families, he said.
In her statement, Ms Coughlan confirmed the requirement to deliver beet in the year preceding the year of quota renunciation to qualify for restructuring aid has been removed from the draft Council Regulations.
She said she intended, subject to adoption of the regulations, to fix the reference period for the single payment compensation for sugar beet growers as the three-year average of the individual farmers’ contracted tonnage of beet for the 2001, 2002 and 2004 marketing years. These years are considered to be the most advantageous for beet growers.
Payments to growers, which start this year, will amount to around €123m over the next seven years.
