More than 8,000 hectares of beet grown in 2009
The Central Statistics Office no longer reports areas under sugar beet and fodder beet separately, since the EU sugar regime reform in February 2006 which ended sugar production here, and resulted in a sharp drop in the sugar beet acreage.
Between 2005 and 2006, the sugar beet acreage fell from 31,000 to 1,700 hectares, according to the CSO. From 1985 to 2006, the sugar beet acreage varied from 31,000 to 37,100, and fodder beet from 3,600 to 11,000 hectares. Combined, they totalled 43,400 hectares in 1991.
