Farmers are being reminded to keep in mind the approaching deadlines for key measures under both the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP) and the Beef Environmental Efficiency Pilot – Sucklers (BEEP-S) schemes.
Brendan Golden, the chairperson of the National Livestock Committee of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), said today (Tuesday, October 13) that the deadline under BDGP (2015 to 2020) to meet the female replacement 50% requirement for 4 or 5-star female animals on the holding is October 31.
Golden highlighted that farmers must have 50% of the reference number of animals for their herd meeting the 4 or 5-star requirement of females that are at least 16 months-of-age on the date and have been born in or after 2013.
The IFA is calling for “flexibility” on these dates in light of the disruption caused by Covid-19, and the fact that some farmers were concerned about attending marts or having service providers on their farms.
“It is important that payments are issued on time to all those meeting the requirements, but for farmers who are unable to do so, the [Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine] must provide a period of grace, taking into account the unique situation that farmers have had to deal with this year.”
PGI meeting
In other IFA-related news, the association has expressed its “disappointment” that a meeting of the beef taskforce which was due to take place yesterday to discuss the protected geographical indication (PGI) status application for Irish grass-fed beef was called off.
IFA president Tim Cullinan said the association had “a constructive meeting with the department on Friday [October 9], where we stressed the importance of farmers being in the majority on the monitoring group to oversee the grass-fed PGI”.
“It must be farmer controlled, not factory controlled. We have had enough of the tail wagging the dog,” Cullinan said.