Sugar beet growers have until tomorrow to indicate to Irish Sugar whether or not they will grow a crop this year.
Greencore Sugar has written to beet growers offering them contracts to grow beet at €36.85 a tonne this year, and told the 3,700 growers they have until tomorrow to accept.
The future operation of the last remaining sugar beet processing plant on the island, in Mallow, Co Cork, rests on this decision.
Its closure, under an EU rationalisation plan, will deliver €145 million in compensation over which Greencore, which operates the plant, and the IFA, have been in conflict.
The company had told the farmers in a letter that Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan had confirmed that in order to qualify for restructuring aid there is a "requirement to deliver beet in the year preceding the year of quota renunciation".
Yesterday the Minister issued a statement pointing out that the EU had not yet adopted the implementing regulations which would provide detailed rules for the actual operation of the restructuring scheme by Ireland and other member states.
"Subject to the requirements of these detailed rules, it is the Minister's intention to determine a period, which will ensure that beet growers who may not have delivered beet in the year preceding quota renunciation are not excluded," said the statement.
This statement on compensation entitlements was described as "legalistic and ambiguous" by the IFA's sugar beet chairman, Peadar Jordan.
Mr Jordan said he would be seeking an urgent meeting with Ms Coughlan to copperfasten the compensation rights for beet growers. He said he was advising beet growers to protect their legal interests by returning today's letter from Greencore before next Friday indicating "yes" to the question of growing beet in 2006.
Mr Jordan said he had sought legal opinion on the letter that had been sent to beet growers and was advised that not returning the letter or answering "no" would effectively terminate their individual contractual rights with Greencore.
Beet growers in the midlands, who traditionally supplied the Carlow plant which closed a year ago in January, have been advised to ignore the letter.
More advice came from Siptu - it called on farmers to grow a crop this year to protect the jobs of workers in the Mallow plant.