Hard to restore beet industry: EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan

EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan has advised private investors and farmers to be “very hard-headed” when assessing figures for viability of restoring beet processing in Ireland.

Speaking in Seanad Eireann this week, he said it will be difficult to restore the industry.

“We will no longer have sugar beet quotas after 2017, and when the assessments were carried out on the redevelopment of the industry in Carlow and Kildare, it was done on the basis that €40 a tonne could be paid to farmers for growing sugar beet, with €700 a tonne for sugar on the marketplace. That market has now reduced to €420 a tonne.”

“It was a very profitable crop and it is most regrettable that the beet industry was allowed to decline, with the consequent direct and indirect employment opportunities lost to rural Ireland.”

“The figures may not add up at the moment and we have to face that fact if we want to restore the industry.”