The row between the Irish Farmers' Association and Irish Sugar has intensified over the price offered to farmers for sugar beet.
The farming organisation has accused the Greencore subsidiary of "intransigence" in the price it is offering for the crop which is worth £55 million to farmers annually. Irish Sugar says it will resist attempts by the IFA to "bully" it into price concessions.
Up to 500 farmers and their families, yesterday attended a rally outside the Carlow beet processing plant which closed on Saturday. Another rally was scheduled for the second processing plant at Mallow, Co Cork, due to cease operations tomorrow.
Six hundred and fifty people are employed in the two factories, which process the beet harvest of up to 200,000 tonnes from 4,000 farmers, between October and January. A decision is expected today on their future.
The dispute came to a head on Wednesday when the IFA decided to refuse to supply beet to the Irish Sugar factories. One third of the beet crop has been processed but there is now no more beet to process, resulting in closure.
Irish Sugar says it pays significantly more for beet than either France or Britain. Its chief executive, Dr Sean Brady, claimed the IFA had engaged in unlawful action by inducing beet growers to break their contracts.
However, IFA president Mr Tom Parlon said farmers had been "backed into a corner". He said the company had cut the price of beet by 10 per cent and that the cost of production of beet has risen by £60 an acre for farmers. They had also lost concessions worth £3.50 a tonne. "A £1 a tonne increase to growers would cost Greencore £1.3 million and this is a company that has written off £55 million in disastrous US investments," Mr Parlon said.
