Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has this evening (Thursday, July 11) reasserted that all farmers with eligible suckler cows that produced an eligible calf during the relevant period are eligible to apply for this year’s Beef Welfare Scheme.
The €20 million scheme will open for applications in August.
The focus of the 2024 BWS will be “on practical measures to enhance animal health and husbandry on suckler farms”.
However, the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has claimed that the conditions of the scheme, effectively meant that autumn-born weanlings would be “frozen out”.
Commenting on this, Minister McConalogue said: “I was delighted to recently announce €20 million, which I secured in budget 2024, to run a new beef welfare scheme for this year.
“I am particularly glad that once again I am delivering on my €200 per suckler cow and calf commitment to farmers.
“I want to assure everyone that all suckler farmers can apply for the scheme where they have calves born between July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024.
“This means they are fully eligible to draw down both the €35 for meal feeding and the €15 for the vaccination measure once they have carried out the actions.
“Keeping the scheme to just two measures means that it is as efficient as it possibly can be for all participants,” he added.
In response to concerns from farm representatives, the minister said that even in the small number of cases where calves born last autumn have now been sold on as weanlings, farmers remain fully eligible for the scheme.
“They can apply for payment for both actions where both were completed before the weanlings were sold,” McConalogue said.
“In the cases where calves were not vaccinated, they will not qualify for the €15 but the farmer remains eligible for the meal feeding payment which makes up €35 of the €50 payment per animal.
“This follows the same pattern as previous schemes including last year’s Beef Welfare Scheme. Where the scheme does differ however, is that I have made an adjustment so that there is no penalty applied to the meal feeding in the event of a farmer not applying for the second measure,” the minister concluded.