Farmers who were rearing calves in 2023 were eligible for a €20/calf payment up to a maximum of 50 calves for meeting the criteria of the National Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme (NDBWS).
This year, that payment will not be available to farmers who rear calves and will instead be paid to the dairy farmers producing calves.
According to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) the CSP Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme (2024-2027) is targeted at the dairy farmer “to support production of a beef calf that will provide more profitability to the farmer rearing the animal to slaughter”.
In a statement to Agriland, the DAFM said: “The ultimate beneficiaries of this scheme are those rearing these calves as they will have significantly better beef traits.”
While the incentive has good intentions and aims to improve the genetic beef merit of calves produced from the dairy herd, it will do little to encourage farmers to continue rearing calves into the future.
Dairy farmers producing good calves have no issue securing a customer and a fair price for their calves every spring and it is now clear amongst dairy farmers that there is no demand from beef farmers for low-quality calves or calves with poor genetic beef merit.
This means that by default, dairy farmers need to produce good-quality calves if they want to secure a market for them.
The high attrition rate in the number of farmers rearing calves is a cause for concern in the industry and the removal of the €1,000/farmer calf-rearing support payment will do little to encourage farmers to continue rearing calves.
DAFM has said the scheme will reopen to dairy farmers again in 2025, 2026 and 2027 for submission of applications.
The scheme opened for applications online on agfood.ie on March 21, 2024 and closed at midnight on May 15, 2024.
A total of 13,155 applications were received for the CSP Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme, according to Teagasc.
DAFM has said there is a 25-calendar day period after the May 15 closing date for acceptance of late applications.
Late applications will see a deduction to payments under the scheme at a rate of 1% per working day. Applications after the 25 day period are ineligible.
Applicants are eligible for payment in the year of application and the remaining years of the scheme and will remain in the scheme until 2027 unless they seek to withdraw in writing.
Eligible calves
Eligible calves are male or female calves sired by a beef-breed sire and born to a dairy dam.
Eligible calves must be born on the holding of an applicant in the scheme year and must be sired from a genotyped 3/4/5 star sire on the Dairy Beef Index (DBI) and on the Beef Sub-Index of the DBI, to be eligible for payment under the scheme.
According to DAFM: “Scheme year one runs from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024.
“Participants do not apply for a specific number of calves, rather payment will be based on the number of eligible calves born during the scheme year, subject to a maximum of 50 eligible calves/herd/scheme year with a payment of €20/eligible calf.