Sugar beet suppliers to the Carlow sugar factory are planning a protest in the town and at the plant next Tuesday to prevent the closure of the facility.
The farmers will spearhead a campaign to keep the factory open and the growers will have the backing of the unions and the business community in the town.
The protest will proceed through the town and on to the factory, which is on the Athy road. The decision to hold such a demonstration was taken at a meeting of growers on Monday night in Carlow which was attended by over 1,000 people including workers at the plant, business people and local politicians.
The plant, the first modern sugar processing plant set up by the new Free State in the mid 1920s, is to close on March 11th.
The closure, which is being described by the company as a commercially driven rationalisation programme, will result in the loss of 189 full-time jobs in Carlow and a further 138 part-time jobs within Irish Sugar.
Irish Sugar will, however, retain a number of key non-production operations in Carlow, where it will employ 63 people, but all processing will be located in Mallow, Co Cork.
The move has angered not only the workers who will lose their livelihoods but the farmer suppliers who failed to get commitments from the company that it would cover the increased cost of transporting sugar beet to Mallow from the east coast counties which have traditionally serviced the Carlow factory.
The growers are also afraid the closure of Ireland's second-last sugar plant will signal a weakness to the EU, which has proposed cutting supports for sugar production to facilitate an agreement in the world trade negotiations.