The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has been urged to “revisit” the inclusion of a test for infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) in the National Beef Welfare Scheme.
The one-year National Beef Welfare Scheme, which is funded by the Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR), is open to all suckler farmers.
In order to take part in the scheme there are two requirements for farmers to sign up to.
This includes participating in IBR testing which is managed by the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).
As part of this process, according to the department, farmers must engage a vet who will test up to 20 animals per herd, at nine-months-old or above if present in the herd, or all ages if there is less than 20 in the herd for IBR antibodies.
The second requirement that farmers must commit to as part of the scheme is to introduce meal feeding for a period of four weeks pre-weaning and two weeks post-weaning to reduce the stress on calves at weaning time.
DAFM has published details of the payment rates available for the scheme:
However, according to the national livestock chair of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) Brendan Golden, the inclusion of IBR testing in the National Beef Welfare Scheme is a “serious mistake” by Minister Charlie McConalogue.
Golden believes the inclusion of the IBR testing requirement is an “unnecessary and costly measure”.
He said the IFA had made direct appeals to the minister and DAFM officials not to include the requirement and they had ignored this view.
According to Golden, the testing requirement has the potential to interfere with the normal marketing of weanlings from herds in the programme, “devaluing animals and exposing suckler farmers to potential liability for purchaser’s losses”.
The IFA instead wants the testing requirement to be replaced with a vaccination component which it believes would be of benefit to “both suckler farmers and the purchasers of weanlings”.
“In addition to the interference with the marketing of weanlings from farms in this scheme the measure is effectively a transfer of supports committed by the minister to suckler farmers in last year’s budget to service providers such as vets and testing laboratories,” Golden added.
“All of the concerns highlighted by IFA are now coming to the fore as farmers incur exorbitant charges from vets for IBR testing and receive positive test results for their animals with no support structure to manage the disease and serious marketing concerns for their weanlings as a result.”
He has appealed to Minister McConalogue to “revisit the scheme requirements as a matter of urgency” and replace it with a scheme that supports suckler farmers directly for actions that are “practical to implement, add value to the farm and have minimal leakage”.
The closing date for applications to the National Beef Welfare Scheme is September, 12.