Over 1,300 at Beet Ireland meetings
Many of them were among estimated attendances of more than 1,300 at meetings over the past two weeks at Cork, Athy, and Enniscorthy.
Farmers can also sign expressions of interest at co-ops and agricultural merchants in the main tillage areas.
The expressions of interest will help the Beet Ireland steering committee make decisions such as a favoured location for their proposed greenfield plant to produce 250,000 tonnes of refined sugar and 11m litres of fuel grade bio-ethanol per year from sugar beet. The location may be decided next spring, said steering committee member Jim O’Regan.
He said next steps also include broadening farmer representation in Beet Ireland, and meeting county councils and enterprise boards. He revealed Beet Ireland and Irish Sugar Biorefinery Group will have an exploratory meeting next Monday, where the agenda is likely to include combining their efforts to restart Irish sugar production when, as expected, the EU sugar quota system is abolished in 2016.
nThe newly set up Eco Beet company want to establish long-term relationships with farmers for supply of fodder beet for renewable energy (see http://ecobeet.com).
