The Greencore beet-processing factories at Mallow, Co Cork, and Carlow, will be picketed from early today by beet producers over a demand for more money for their crop.
The farmers, who are organised by the Irish Farmers' Association, decided on Monday night to withhold all beet supplies to the company from today until they get an increase from the company.
The 3,800 specialist beet farmers who grow the crop for Greencore/Irish Sugar, will be joined on the picket lines today by the IFA president, Mr Tom Parlon.
The farmers decided to take the action because they saw the refusal to increase payments to them as a price cut by a company which has total monopoly in the area.
Mr Parlon said growers had been forced to take the decision in the light of "negative and fruitless" negotiations with the company which had failed over a 10-month period.
"All final efforts by the IFA to resolve the beet price dispute with the company had collapsed at a meeting in Dublin last Friday night, and growers were left with no option but to withdraw all supplies of beet until further notice," said Mr Parlon.
The chairman of the IFA Beet Section, Mr Willie French, accused the company of unwillingness to enter meaningful negotiations.
The company, he said, was insisting that last year's price and bonuses were conditional on the Irish Farmers' Association entering a price-cutting formula for the future.
"Greencore . . . used their monopoly by ruling out every attempt at serious negotiations and are trying to bully growers into accepting their beet price-cutting formula," he said.
Mr French said growers' costs had risen by up to £60 per acre this harvest and the company wanted to freeze the price at last year's level of £34.50. The growers were seeking an increase of £4.70p per tonne to cover costs.
The company's stance, he said, was simply unacceptable from a monopoly purchaser with a profit margin on sugar of 18 per cent or £26.5 million a year.
A company statement said last night it was not seeking to reduce the price paid to farmers this year and had offered the same price as last year.
This, said the statement, was placing the company at a commercial disadvantage because of imports from France and other countries.
It suggested that independent adjudication should be set up to determine the price paid to farmers to prevent the difficulties which had arisen.
It was learned last night that nearly 30 per cent of the annual sugar-beet crop has already been delivered to the company's two factories and to a collection site for the company at Wellington Bridge, Co Wexford, since harvesting began two weeks ago.