plans to revive sugar beet industry

PeterCasey

See meeting is been held this evening to discuss plans revive sugar beet industry in Bunclody Wexford you wonder would farmers buy into it times have changed . Farming has changed a lot since the beet industry was here last.

wrangler

PeterCasey wrote: »

See meeting is been held this evening to discuss plans revive sugar beet industry in Bunclody Wexford you wonder would farmers buy into it times have changed . Farming has changed a lot since the beet industry was here last.

It won't be subsidised the way it was, it won't be the moneyspinner it was.
I hear already the supporters are starting to wane....

alps

Share of lads tipping away on the farm 2 farm trade...maybe this is an easier and more honest outlet...

20silkcut

Surely at nothing without serious government backing.
Unless there is some sort of small niche market they can carve out for Irish sugar.
Might be more realistic in a hard disastrous brexit situation.
We import sugar from the brits if that was closed there might be an opportunity for a sugar industry again. Just drove past the old sugar factory in Thurles today. The factory created a small village on the edge of the town with nice fancy houses that still look great adjacent to the factory

PeterCasey

20silkcut wrote: »

Surely at nothing without serious government backing.
Unless there is some sort of small niche market they can carve out for Irish sugar.
Might be more realistic in a hard disastrous brexit situation.
We import sugar from the brits if that was closed there might be an opportunity for a sugar industry again. Just drove past the old sugar factory in Thurles today. The factory created a small village on the edge of the town with nice fancy houses that still look great adjacent to the factory

They seem to have a site ear marked outside Carlow town.

bogman_bass

Can't see us being able to compete with the likes of the Belgians or French at that game

Dakota Dan

I remember bio fuel was all the rage when the mallow factory closed one farmer applied for planning to build a factory to turn beet into biofuel but was refused planning. You wouldn't hear a word about biofuel now with all the crying they have about the environment.

PeterCasey

Dakota Dan wrote: »

I remember bio fuel was all the rage when the mallow factory closed one farmer applied for planning to build a factory to turn beet into biofuel but was refused planning. You wouldn't hear a word about biofuel now with all the crying they have about the environment.

We were going fairly green then you had those clowns in government they nearly wanted us to go back to a dry toilet.

Water John

It wasn't, The Greens, who sold the Irish Sugar Industry, down the toilet. Hard to predict now, with sugar becoming the big no no, in healthy eating.

PeterCasey

Water John wrote: »

It wasn't, The Greens, who sold the Irish Sugar Industry, down the toilet. Hard to predict now, with sugar becoming the big no no, in healthy eating.

It was fine fail that sold it that Mary Coughlan , if you had to read what I said we had the green party were starting to get a voice about the mid 2000nds it was all bio fuels they were the ones that brought in the incentive about diesel cars.

Water John

Well there was a lot of compo involved, outside of the politics. There have always been questions as to where some of this, largesse, ended up.

Dakota Dan

PeterCasey wrote: »

It was fine fail that sold it that Mary Coughlan , if you had to read what I said we had the green party were starting to get a voice about the mid 2000nds it was all bio fuels they were the ones that brought in the incentive about diesel cars.

I ran an old Citroen one time on veg oil and diesel 50/50 mix, it ran great and smelled like a chipper until the government got wind of people using it in their cars and doubled the price to make it dearer than diesel. So much for being environmentally friendly.

Water John

And importing boat loads of palm oil, filling the bio quota.

wrangler

Water John wrote: »

Well there was a lot of compo involved, outside of the politics. There have always been questions as to where some of this, largesse, ended up.

Factory owners got most of it, Growers did very well out of it too, they mightn't have got their fair share but they got substantial compensation out of it

Water John

I think many, that had contact/involvement in the sector have serious suspicions and the questions remain, as to them being, conspiracy theory or not.
Any new plant would have to have both sugar and bio options, most likely. Sadly, a very different place from, reinvigorating existing plant.

Dakota Dan

Mallow factory was only 4 miles down the road from me, it was great for extra feed for the winter. You could fatten herefords and Angus on tops and tails during the winter. Also many farmers worked the campaign, great supplementary income.

Water John

There was a lot of spin off from the industry, esp at farm level, as well as being having a key role in rotation and profit.
Also the harvesting and haulage side, was at a time, that complimented other activities at other times of the year.
I know cleaning and feeding it is a PITA but we also let fodder beet slip, as a key feed. Probably best feed produced per acre, in our climate.

ganmo

Is sugar beet suitable for ethanol production? I've only heard of corn being used for it

Dakota Dan

ganmo wrote: »

Is sugar beet suitable for ethanol production? I've only heard of corn being used for it

It's more suitable than corn.

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Biofuels/Why-Sugar-Beets-Are-Preferable-To-Corn-For-Ethanol-Production.html

Why do yanks call beet beets?

Water John

Its what should have happened here, add enthanol plant. But it was not part of Greencore's future plans. They saw possible higher return avenues of more interest to them, in foreign fields. Especially when you were handed the capital to do so, for free.
It was a loss for everyone else.

A large chunk of those people were both angry and mystified as to how things turned out.

ganmo

Dakota Dan wrote: »

Why do yanks call beet beets?

Asked Dakota Dan

PeterCasey

It was hard to see industry closed down when it made money, farming has changed things have got bigger the day with the man having ten acres of beet will never come back because the likes of that man has expanded his cow herd gone out of sowing few acres of corn or beet. Time frame of getting crops back in the ground after pulling beet would be a big factor, also haulage contractors are tied into contracts with clients they might not be able to commit to drawing beet.

Water John

The product will arrive at the factory, if such an enterprise can be built and be profitable.

wrangler

PeterCasey wrote: »

It was hard to see industry closed down when it made money, farming has changed things have got bigger the day with the man having ten acres of beet will never come back because the likes of that man has expanded his cow herd gone out of sowing few acres of corn or beet. Time frame of getting crops back in the ground after pulling beet would be a big factor, also haulage contractors are tied into contracts with clients they might not be able to commit to drawing beet.

Wasn't the EU withdrawing the subsidy, It was a chance for Greencore to get away from a factory that needed rebuilding and be compensated on the way out.
It wouldn't be a great business decision to ignore it, from what I remember they did have opportunities elsewhere.
Subsidies are great until someone puts a line through them

Water John

The price of sugar, doubled in 18 months following closure.
Would be like major milk processor doing the figures whilst milk was at 19 cent/litre.

wrangler

Water John wrote: »

The price of sugar, doubled in 18 months following closure.
Would be like major milk processor doing the figures whilst milk was at 19 cent/litre.

Depends what the subsidy was then, but hindsight is always 100%.
They were well paid to quit and the factory run out.....I suppose the farmers didn't take it over either then no more than now, so it mustn't have had that great a future

Water John

Farmers wouldn't have been allowed take it over, Closing it down was the key to Greencore's EU payment package.
They worked hard, to make sure, it happened. From your IFA days, you should be well aware of that.

alps

Just as well no one ventured to make ethanol out of beet at the time.....most alternative fuels have floundered since the downturn as there was no way to compete with oil.....ethanol, biogas, fracking....

It also had the effect of returning so much grain to animal feed, hence cheap grains for milk production....

Water John

Indeed, fracking came from left field and undermined energy price, combined with the world recession.
The barrel of oil is climbing, again.

Gawddawggonnit

wrangler wrote: »

Factory owners got most of it, Growers did very well out of it too, they mightn't have got their fair share but they got substantial compensation out of it

Yes. The industry was sold down the drain to line the pockets of a few...

Mary Coughlan negotiated the deal with the full support of the IFA...

Bringing back the sbeet industry would be difficult now. New processing plants etc, farmers have lost the knowledge and tools and tech to grow sbeet.

If sugar was a drinkable white liquid, the industry would be up and running long ago...

wrangler

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Yes. The industry was sold down the drain to line the pockets of a few...

Mary Coughlan negotiated the deal with the full support of the IFA...

Bringing back the sbeet industry would be difficult now. New processing plants etc, farmers have lost the knowledge and tools and tech to grow sbeet.

If sugar was a drinkable white liquid, the industry would be up and running long ago...

That's like saying that building motorways through farmers land had the full support of the IFA just because they got the best deal they could for farmers.
Did you expect them to stand back and let greencore take everything.
Greencore owned the factory, it was up to them to do what they liked with it.
Farmers took the 'kings shilling' to get out too.......are you saying that they couldn't go up the road and start another plant....I don't remember that being the case anyway

Wanderer78

Being an 'outsider', it's interesting to see this being mentioned, something isn't right in the world of farming if old industries are being considered again. What do you 'insiders' believe is the reasons for this?

wrangler

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Being an 'outsider', it's interesting to see this being mentioned, something isn't right in the world of farming if old industries are being considered again. What do you 'insiders' believe is the reasons for this?

I'd guess that the reason investigating restarting the sugar industry is due to the poor grain price, probably more in desperation than anything else.
But every industry has to move with the times or get out....just food production seems to be a race to the bottom now

Wanderer78

wrangler wrote:

I'd guess that the reason investigating restarting the sugar industry is due to the poor grain price, probably more in desperation than anything else. But every industry has to move with the times or get out....just food production seems to be a race to the bottom now

This race to the bottom isn't just confined to agriculture, there's evidence to show that it exists in many other industries, possibly all, which is worrying. Thank you

20silkcut

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Being an 'outsider', it's interesting to see this being mentioned, something isn't right in the world of farming if old industries are being considered again. What do you 'insiders' believe is the reasons for this?

Remember this industry was abandoned at the height of the Celtic tiger. Land prices for much of the tillage land that this beet was grown on was touching €15K to €20k an acre at the time. There was ample opportunities to invest in the booming property market too. There was a public meeting in Tipperary at the time where one speaker advised farmers to forget beet and get into property. Liam Carroll was going to turn Carlow sugar beet factory into a massive housing development.
The compensation payments were generous. Really at the time no one was going to starve at the loss of the beet industry . Grain prices were good back then too. The beet industry was expendable in 2006.
Fast forward to today and tillage farmers are absolutely on the floor.
Reading the tillage sections of the farmers journal and independent are utterly depressing the realization has dawned that really the sugar beet industry underpinned the tillage sector in this country for decades. It is nothing without it. The Celtic tiger is long gone. The compensation money is long gone. Green core are long gone.

wrangler

Wanderer78 wrote: »

This race to the bottom isn't just confined to agriculture, there's evidence to show that it exists in many other industries, possibly all, which is worrying. Thank you

Agreed, we're in a high cost country, high taxes, we can't compete with lower cost countries,
Sugar would be a prime example as it would have to compete with sugar cane, usually produced in low cost countries.

Wanderer78

wrangler wrote:

Agreed, we're in a high cost country, high taxes, we can't compete with lower cost countries, Sugar would be a prime example as it would have to compete with sugar cane, usually produced in low cost countries.

I always find these debates of 'high cost', 'high tax' interesting, are we really? I suspect elements of our economy are indeed high cost, and elements of our taxation are also high, but other elements are not. Do we have the right elements at the right levels? I have reason to believe farmers in developing countries are getting hammered to, who the hell is actually gaining if this is the case?

Mooooo

Wanderer78 wrote: »

I always find these debates of 'high cost', 'high tax' interesting, are we really? I suspect elements of our economy are indeed high cost, and elements of our taxation are also high, but other elements are not. Do we have the right elements at the right levels? I have reason to believe farmers in developing countries are getting hammered to, who the hell is actually gaining if this is the case?

Supermarkets and processors, doubt much of the price of an avocado is making it's way to the lad in the field in Mexico

wrangler

Wanderer78 wrote: »

I always find these debates of 'high cost', 'high tax' interesting, are we really? I suspect elements of our economy are indeed high cost, and elements of our taxation are also high, but other elements are not. Do we have the right elements at the right levels? I have reason to believe farmers in developing countries are getting hammered to, who the hell is actually gaining if this is the case?

even without high tax , other countries would have the economies of scale we wouldn't have.
Is there any other country where health insurance is a necessity even though you're paying for a health service in taxes, or that spends millions on infrastructure and then doesn't use it.
Mushroom producers here paying €10/hr are competing with poland paying less than half that
A lot of companies are now avoiding Ireland because of the cost of doing business, it doesn't bode well for brexit because of it.

Water John

The cheaper products from other parts of the world are often used. Perhaps people might read up on sugar production in,,,,, FINLAND.

http://www.nordicsugar.com/about-nordic-sugar/our-organisation/our-locations/saekylae/

darragh_haven

I know its not Sugar beet, but there are farmers in North Cork, waterford and carlow now growing fodder beet, energy beets and maize fir AD plants that I've been involved in constructing in Armagh and Down.
5 year contracts with one load a day going to some plants. I know the guy supplying from North Cork has a back load every day from Dublin port.
Its a beet industry of some form at least....

Water John

That's really interesting, Haven. Long transport distance, but I suppose, fodder beet is energy dense.
Have you any handle on how AD may play out down here. Studied it in 2001. Nearly 20 years, feck all happened.

Nekarsulm

Govt. and ESB not interested in paying small scale producers for electricity.
Looked at putting up a turbine here, and if you had a breezy 6 months, you'd hit your supply limit and end up giving the rest of the years power away free to them.
That's why the AD plants are in the UK not here.

wrangler

Nekarsulm wrote: »

Govt. and ESB not interested in paying small scale producers for electricity.
Looked at putting up a turbine here, and if you had a breezy 6 months, you'd hit your supply limit and end up giving the rest of the years power away free to them.
That's why the AD plants are in the UK not here.

A neighbour put up a turbine, they say they'll never get their money back.
I was on an AD plant in Germany where they were getting 25c/Kwhr compared with 9c/kwhr here.......that;s why they're in Germany and not here

Water John

Yes, it's sad. Other countries, even the UK supported all RE, big and small, to some degree. The ball is in Naughton's court, a good while now. No move, in reality.
AD has a multiple win outcome. Not sure of the economics of Bio, from beet or any other source. Haven, would be much more clued in.

GrasstoMilk

From what I'm told from tillage friends.

It costs 900€/ac to grow and last year English farmers were paid 45€/t

Also to get a 400 t contract you'll have to pay 25k
That'll get you enough contract to grow 16 acres
25t crop leaves 225€ /ac margin. So you'll have 3600€ off the 16 acres.
The numbers don't stack up. You'd need a 100 acres to make it worth while and then you need rotations so ye would need to be farming a lot of land.

Also a single row harvester from cross is 69k and a double is 76k

kevthegaff

What would ad plants do to already extortionate land prices..

Water John

What's the connection?

darragh_haven

Sorry, didn't see all these AD questions till now.

AD in the UK is in 3 parts. England & Wales(together) , Scotland and the Northern Ireland. All have slightly different payment structures, with NI being the slightly the better place for an agricultural AD.

NI payed approx 22p (25cent) per Kw hour up to 500Kwh. If you can get all the ducks in a row in the Republic(which is extremely difficult and complex compared to the UK), your can get 15.8 cent. Therefore it's not viable in the Republic as an Agricultural enterprise. End of!

As regards beet and maize travelling North of the border, there is somewhere between 150ton to 250ton per day. I know where 100ton per day goes, and there is a lot more moving than I know about. I know of a contractor in South Armagh, with a land in Meath also (renting a lot more there) and 90%+ of his maize goes to AD plants in NI. £52/ton landed in the AD plant yard.

I don't know what is being paid for the beet for North Cork of Carlow.

darragh_haven

kevthegaff wrote: »

What would ad plants do to already extortionate land prices..

As a fella in a big beef fattening unit near Limavady said "those AD plants put manners on the Dairy lads"

Tbh, it's probably a bit better return than Dairy in NI..... And you know what you are going to be paid for the next 20 year, unlike waiting to find out what a Co-op might raise of lower your payment for what you produced nearly 2 months ago

wrangler

darragh_haven wrote: »

As a fella in a big beef fattening unit near Limavady said "those AD plants put manners on the Dairy lads"

If the North could stop their subsidies on Renewble Energy they would,
It's after been some money spinner for those involved