Ireland's sugar industry will disappear if new EU proposals for sweeping cuts in support prices are implemented, a leading grower said today.
"We'd be totally opposed to those price cuts, and I'm sure they will be opposed by growing organisations across Europe," said Jim O'Regan, chairman of the sugar beet section of the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA).
"It would hand over the sugar industry to the Brazilians," he said, referring to the world's top producer.
Mr O'Regan said sugar growers from small EU producers such as Spain and Portugal, which will be hard hit by the proposed support price cuts, will meet in Bologna in central Italy next Tuesday to formulate a united response to the EU plans.
The European Commission has called for harsher and quicker cuts to Europe's subsidy-laden sugar regime to comply with a world trade ruling that branded many EU exports illegal, a senior EU source told reporters yesterday.
In a proposal to be published on June 22nd, the commission will recommend a cut of 39 per cent to the EU's support price for white sugar, and another of 42 per cent to the minimum beet price. Both would be implemented over two years, the source said.
The earlier reform plan, floated in July 2004, had called for cuts of 33 and 37 per cent over three years.
Many EU governments wanted a longer period to adapt to the cuts. "Even at 37 per cent price cuts, an Irish farmer would be producing beet at below cost of production," Mr O'Regan said. "He'd be sort of subsidising the industry. No one could take that," he added.
"Price cuts of 39 and 42 per cent would certainly mean the demise of the Irish sugar industry," Mr O'Regan said from his farm in Cork
The State's only sugar producer Greencore closed one of its sugar factories in January, blaming increased competition.
Just one sugar factory remains - Greencore's plant in Mallow, which produces some 200,000 tonnes of sugar a year and employs around 500 people.