Ireland’s best tillage crop on borrowed time

BEET growers were warned this week that they may be only two weeks away from the death of their industry, as IFA briefed farmers around the country on its fight against EU sugar reforms which Agriculture Commissioner Fischer Boel will try to finalise in the Council of Ministers meeting starting on November 22.

At the first of a series of information meetings, IFA Beet Section chairman Jim O’Regan warned growers in Cork Monday night that the reform may have been written to suit the 60% import tariff cut now being offered by Trade Commissioner Mandelson in WTO talks, and that Commissioner Fischer Boel will pull out all the stops to drive the sugar reform through before the big WTO summit in Hong Kong.

He said IFA and Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan are liaising with the other 10 countries which, with Ireland, form a blocking minority in the Council of Ministers which is holding up the sugar reform.