Mr. Jack Nolan:

Unfortunately, the area of sugar beet has fallen. When we had a sugar beet industry there were over 30,000 ha. Last year, there were between 500 ha and 600 ha. If the sugar beet industry is to come back, it will be to produce sugar. Ethanol will be a by-product. The same applies to wheat and barley. The committee has met the grain growers. They are competing with world market prices. Unfortunately, with the cost of production here, it is better for grain to go to a high value end product rather than something like this which is secondary. At the moment, there is no market. The area of tillage is falling and anecdotally the area of winter plantings is down again because of the weather but also the hard harvest. There may be in the future the potential to use grass as a biomass product because there is 93% grass in the country. We are very good at growing it and are getting better at it. There is no market opportunity for cereals for tillage farmers.