The Irish Farmers' Association yesterday met Oxfam, the Third World development agency, and claimed its proposals on reforming the EU sugar policy would be damaging for both Irish and Third World farmers.
The relationship between Oxfam and the largest Irish farm organisation has been strained since the breakdown of the World Trade negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, last year.
The IFA president, Mr John Dillon, attacked both Oxfam and Trócaire at his organisation's agm in Limerick last January, accusing them of giving out "misleading" information, damaging to Irish farmers, in the debate on Third World development at the world trade negotiations.
"It seems that Oxfam cannot distinguish between the genuine needs of poor farmers in the least developed countries and the demands of ranchers and plantation owners in Argentina, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand," Mr Dillon told his membership.
Following yesterday's meeting, this allegation was again repeated by the chairman of the IFA sugar beet committee, Mr Jim O' Regan.
"Sugar beet provides a vitally important income for dedicated Irish growers, at a time when farm incomes are already under extreme pressure. Ireland's 3,700 beet growers have an average beet crop of just 7 hectares," he said.
They are not the "big farmers" Oxfam describes and would be facing disaster if Oxfam's proposal to cut the EU sugar quota by 33 per cent was implemented, he said.
"The reality is that Oxfam's attacks on the CAP generally, and on the EU sugar regime in particular, are highly damaging and misguided. They are playing into the hands of Europe's opponents in the world trade talks when Europe is a far better friend of the world's poorest countries than any of the other major players or trading blocks," he said.
Currently, the EU purchases 1.6m tonnes of sugar from ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries under a preferential import deal, which subsidises these countries' growers to the tune of €800m per year, Mr O'Regan said.
In addition, the EU will give import concessions to a total of 49 least developed countries (LDCs) from 2006, allowing full duty-free and quota-free access to EU markets from 2009, he said.
"The reason why world sugar prices are so low is because Brazilian sugar exports have increased ten-fold since 1990 to 14 million tonnes, while EU exports over the same period have remained stable at 5 million tonnes per year," he added.