The total number of farmers that applied for the Beef Environmental Efficiency Pilot (BEEP) scheme on a county-by-county basis and the amount of money allocated to each county has been revealed.
The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed, disclosed the details following a request from Fianna Fáil’s agriculture spokesperson Charlie McConalogue.
Minister Creed outlined: “19,135 valid applications were received for the pilot with 16,424 of those subsequently carrying out the required actions and receiving payments totalling €15,306,280.
The objective of BEEP is to further increase economic and environmental efficiency in the suckler herd through better quality data on herd performance, supporting decision making on farm.
The breakdown of payments to date under the 2019 BEEP scheme by county and the value per county is given below:
Minister Creed outlined that 124 herds remain to be processed but added “these are expected to be concluded in the coming weeks”.
As can be seen from the table above, Co. Galway had the highest number of herd applications with 1,794 farmers availing of the funding – securing a total of €1,535,560 for suckler farmers in the county.
On the other side of the scale – excluding Dublin – Co. Louth had the lowest number of applications with a total of 152 farmers in the county drawing down a total of €170,280 in funding.