Beet growers to stage protest over cuts
The protest, organised by the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), will be held on November 20, in Mallow, Co Cork, the location of the country's sole remaining Greencore sugar processing plant.
Key elements of the proposals are a 39% price cut in the institutional price for sugar, a corresponding reduction in the minimum price for sugar beet and 60% compensation to farmers for the price cut. A voluntary restructuring scheme is proposed to encourage factory closures and the renunciation of quota.
It is widely accepted that the proposed reforms as framed would devastate the Irish sugar industry which involves 3,700 beet growers, 185 full-time and 70 seasonal employees and a range of other service providers, including hauliers.
EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel and Margaret Beckett, the current president of the Council of Agricultural Ministers, are insisting that a final decision on the proposals be taken at the next council meeting on November 22-24.
Discussions on the proposals became deadlocked at this week's council meeting, with the commission sticking firmly to its proposals and a blocking minority of 11 countries, including Ireland, equally opposed.
IFA sugar beet section chairman Jim O'Regan, announcing the Mallow protest, said he was disappointed there had been no improvement on the proposed beet price at this week's meeting in Luxembourg. Repeating his call for a viable beet price for the Irish industry into the future, he said he was greatly alarmed that the European Commission appeared to be backtracking on allocating some of the restructuring fund to growers.
Mr O'Regan called on Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan to ensure that the fund was not given to the Irish processor Greencore.
Meanwhile, Ireland South MEP Brian Crowley said the proposals are excessive, provocative and unacceptable and will be opposed.
They are an attack on the Irish industry and the country's beet growers, who need a viable price if they are to continue in production, he said.
He said Ms Coughlan had taken a tough and courageous stance against the draconian reforms, but Ireland was not alone, as 10 other EU partners support the same position.
"Together they have enough votes to block these proposals. If the proposals are not improved our minister and her allies would be fully justified in blocking them until such time as an acceptable compromise is found however long that takes," he said.
