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Construction of a new sugar beet processing plant will begin in 2022, if Beet Ireland can persuade enough growers to join a new co-operative.
Almost 150 tillage farmers gathered in Tipperary on Thursday night to hear Beet Ireland’s proposal to revive the country’s sugar beet industry. Many of the assembled crowd were former sugar beet growers and contractors who had previously profitable beet enterprises.
Some 1,000 farmers will be needed to contribute €1,000 each to set up a new co-operative in partnership with Beet Ireland.
This co-op would then invest in a new beet company, along with funding from other sources such as the European Investment Bank, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and bank borrowings, and other investors, to generate the €300m required to construct and get the new factory up and running.
Over 100 tillage farmers in Tipperary listening to @BEETIreland proposal to set up grower co-op to invest in new beet company. pic.twitter.com/mYWauZqm4o
— IFJCaitriona (@IFJCaitriona) December 6, 2018
Chris Harmon of Beet Ireland told farmers at the meeting that the co-op model was the best model and that the growers’ co-op would be represented on the board of the new beet company.
He described the €1,000 investment as a “small level of exposure” for farmers to get the opportunity to restart Ireland’s sugar industry and potentially reap the benefits of the value-added side of sugar beet processing.
He added that “every cent” would be refunded to farmers who contribute if the 1,000 farmer target is not reached.
Beet Ireland chair Michael Hoey, also managing director of Country Crest, told farmers at the meeting that he saw sugar as an enabler for others products such as polymers, bioenergy (ethanol) and as an organic chemical.
Underdogs
“Tillage farmers have always been the underdogs and it has got worse in recent years, we are prices takers,” said Hoey.
“Now is the chance to put a proper Irish farmer brand on the shelves and there is a huge pharmaceutical industry in this country which is a big user of glucose products.”
"My father handed me his sugar beet quota at 18 years of age, that's how I got started farming. I've seen the spinout to the hinterland of 30 miles outside Mallow" - John Coughlan, Munster @IFAmedia
— IFJCaitriona (@IFJCaitriona) December 6, 2018
Beet Ireland director and former IFA beet chairman Jim O’Regan told farmers: “There is no future for tillage unless we get an anchor crop in the rotation to carry that industry.”
“Dairy farmers are quite prepared to pay for expansion, why not the same for tillage farmers?” he asked.
Good, bad and ugly
Tom Short, IFA South Leinster regional chair, complimented Beet Ireland on its work to date, telling farmers: “It’s not often you get the opportunity to get back into an industry that we should never have lost.”
“Tonight is a chance for farmers to see the business model, and to see the good, the bad and ugly of what is being proposed.”
He added that the co-op model offered the chance for everyone to take a profit when there was profit to be made and highlighted the risks taken when FBD, Glanbia and Dairygold were first set up by farmers.
“We have to stop selling out the farm gate and having no control over what we produce,” he said.
Beet Ireland will hold a further meeting at the IFA centre in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, on Wednesday 12 December.
Read more in the next print edition of the Irish Farmers Journal.
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