Last gasp sugar effort call

BEET growers’ leader Jim O’Regan has called for a last gasp effort to save the sugar industry, which is delivering payments of €1,200 per acre to farmers for this year’s bumper crop.

High yields and one of the highest prices on record are coming to the rescue of beet growers whose cereal crops contributed little to their profits this year.

Crops are averaging 18 tonnes per acre and farmers are getting €65 per tonne.

But the demise of Ireland’s sugar industry is feared, due to the EU’s plan to cut its support for sugar and beet prices by 39%, while compensating farmers for only 60% of the price cut.

No other compensation is on offer for growers; IFA Beet Section chairman Jim O’Regan believes that €10 to €20 per tonne of beet is the most Irish farmers might get in later negotiations on sharing out the €730 per tonne of sugar on the table in Brussels for processors, in a voluntary restructuring scheme to encourage factory closures and renunciation of quotas.

Mr O’Regan has announced that a nationwide series of eight IFA information meetings on progress of EU sugar reform talks will begin at the Silver Springs Moran Hotel, Cork, 8pm, Monday night, November 7.

* An International Federation of European Sugarbeet Growers spokesman confirmed that a record crop is on the cards this year, but warned that if the EU is forbidden from exporting its usual sugar tonnage, excess production will have to be stored, creating stockpiles that nobody wants to buy.