Irish beet farmers in Brussels protest over sugar reforms

Irish beet farmers joined thousands of protesters in Brussels yesterday to demonstrate against proposed EU sugar reforms.

Farmers blocked streets with tractors in part of the Belgium capital as EU ministers debated a plan to overhaul the industry.

If the plan is given the go-ahead it will dramatically reduce the support paid to farmers and, according to the Irish Farmers' Association, will wipe out the industry here.

The 50-strong Irish beet growers' delegation also made their views known at a meeting with Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan.

Jim O'Regan, chairman of the IFA sugar beet committee and a beet farmer in Cork, said no industry could sustain price cuts of 45 per cent. "The proposals will wipe out the country's 3,700 beet growers. At the unrealistic price of €25 per tonne of beet, which is central to the commission's proposals, it would not cover the costs of production even on the most efficient farms. The average beet grower in Ireland farms 17 acres and could not sustain those cuts."

Speaking at the Council of EU Agriculture Ministers, Ms Coughlan said the proposals were unacceptable. "This is the first time in the history of the Cap that the severity of the price cut being proposed will result, on the commission's own analysis, in a drastic reduction in production for four member states and a significant reduction in another nine. She indicated the government would stay tough in its opposition to the proposal but admitted the current group of countries that share Ireland's absolute opposition to the plans - Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal - is not enough to form the necessary blocking minority.

She criticised the proposals as being "totally at variance with the philosophy of CAP" as competitiveness was the only criterion underlying the overhaul rather than social factors.

Farm commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel tabled the proposals last month, a year before the current sugar regime is to run out. The EU is pushing for a November agreement ahead of a meeting of the WTO in Hong Kong the following month.