IFA: Compensation for beet growers only

BEET growers and not Greencore must be allocated the European Union compensation package for the loss of the sugar sector, the new president of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) insisted yesterday.

Padraig Walshe told the IFA annual general meeting in Dublin that with one stroke of the pen last November in Brussels, the EU agriculture ministers wiped out the future livelihoods of Ireland’s 3,700 beet growers.

An EU compensation package of €130 million is available to the Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan for the loss of the sugar sector.