Bord Bia has contacted 22 dairy herds and their milk processors to check compliance with the Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme (SDAS), after these herds were found to be slaughtering calves under 56 days of age.

Bord Bia said that, as part of its data sharing agreement with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Bord Bia is provided with data on SDAS herds that have slaughtered calves under 56 days.

This allows Bord Bia to "take a targeted approach" to auditing these herds, under agreement with the dairy processing industry, the food board said.

So far in 2025, 22 herds have been identified as slaughtering calves under 56 days of age, according to the data supplied to Bord Bia from the department.

A spokesperson for Bord Bia told Agriland that these herds have been contacted directly, as have their milk processors, requesting evidence of compliance with the quality assurance certification criteria under SDAS.

In cases of calf slaughter under 56 days, mitigating factors may include disease outbreak.

Meanwhile, Bord Bia said that a total of 3,109 audits under SDAS were carried out between January 1 and April 30 this year.

The function of an SDAS audit is to assess the conformance of herds with the criteria of the standard.

Where there is evidence of major non-conformance found at audit, the farmer must take corrective action within an agreed period of time. This period is known as closeout.

Where the corrective action is not taken within the agreed time period, the herd will not be eligible for quality assurance certification.

So far in 2025, 19 herds were made non-eligible for certification, eight of which were subsequently re-audited and certified after they became compliant with the criteria.

This means 11 dairy farms lost quality assurance certification under SDAS.

Compared to previous years, six farms were made non-eligible for SDAS between January 1 and April 30 of 2024, while 10 farms were made non-eligible in the same period of 2023.