Beet goes on: Bioethenol boost

IRISH farmers are free to grow sugar beet again, but could only use it to produce non-food products such as bioethanol, Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos will tell Irish MEPs and farmers next week.

Greencore, who owned the Irish sugar beet quota and the 3,700 beet growers, accepted €310 million compensation for getting out of sugar production five years ago.

The Mallow factory, which shut with the loss of 240 jobs, could have been turned into a bioethenol plant at the time.