The details of the application process for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s new €20 million Beef Environmental Efficiency Pilot (BEEP) scheme will be revealed next Wednesday (January 30).
Under the BEEP scheme – announced as a beef sector support under Budget 2019 – farmers will receive a payment of up to €40/cow for collecting weight data on cows and calves.
It is anticipated that the data will be used to target improvements on a herd basis, by giving the farmer detailed feedback on the performance of individual animals.
It is also aimed at “incentivising” the collection of data not currently available in a significant volume to the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) under the Beef Data Genomics Programme (BDGP).
The pilot scheme, expected to target the weaning efficiency of suckler cows and calves, will measure the live weight of the calf at weaning as a percentage of the cow’s live weight.
The scheme – which is not just confined to those participating in the BDGP – will pay on the assumption of 500,000 weanlings participating.
‘Limited benefit’
Eddie Punch, general secretary of the Irish Cattle Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), previously stated that pilot is the “the right way to go” to make extra money for suckler farmers.
He believes the weight-based system will be a simpler, easier sell to farmers than the “flawed” BDGP programme.
As a general principle, I think it’s the right way to go – I think it’s some extra money for suckler farmers.
“It’s not going to make a huge difference; we still need the beef industry to step up to the plate in terms of beef price – but it is I think a good use of a relatively small amount of money which will deliver some benefit to suckler farmers.”
However, he warned that stakeholders have to make sure that weighing scales are readily available to all the farmers who don’t have them, without it being a “cost exercise”.