Participants in a number of farm schemes have one week left to submit data in order to ensure they receive payments.
Several farm schemes require that certain actions be undertaken and completed by November 1 each year, which falls one week from today.
Under the National Beef Welfare Scheme (NBWS), blood samples must be submitted – via a private veterinary practitioner – to an accredited laboratory for infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) testing by 5:30p.m next Wednesday.
However, samples must always be submitted within three days of being taken.
The scheme will pay farmers €15 for each animal tested, up to a maximum of 20 animals. However, 20 animals must be tested (or all animals on the farm in cases where farms have fewer than 20 animals).
As well as providing farmers with money to test for IBR, the NBWS will also provide farmers with €35/calf – up to a maximum of 40 calves – to meal feed calves for four weeks pre-weaning and two weeks post-weaning.
Meanwhile, participants under the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) haven until next Wednesday to submit weight data for calves and their dams (though weights must always be submitted within seven days of being recorded).
The requirement is to weigh the cow and calf on the same day. The calf must be over 50 days of age and not yet weaned from its dam to be eligible for weighing.
Weight data is also due to be submitted under the Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme by November 1 (though again, weight data must always be submitted within seven days of being recorded).
Farmers who complete the Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme’s weighing requirement will receive €20/eligible calf weighed. The minimum number of calves eligible for payment is five and the maximum is 50.
According to the scheme’s terms and conditions, eligible calves should be a male calf of a dairy breed or a male or female calf from a beef breed sire born to a dairy breed dam.
Eligible calves should be born between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023 and be at least 12 weeks of age at the time of weighing.
An eligible calf should be registered on the holding it is being weighed on for a minimum of 10 days prior to the date of weighing.
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) has reminded farmers participating in the Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme of the impending closing date for weight data submission.
Des Morrison, the association’s Livestock Committee chairperson, said the scheme “is gathering momentum despite the government’s chronic underfunding of a scheme that ticked all the boxes on sustainability, emissions, profitability and practicality”.
“[The ICMSA holds] that this is an obvious route to the greater integration between the dairy and beef sectors that everyone recognises is already underway and actually needs to be accelerated,” Morrison commented.
He added: “The scheme has been heavily subscribed in the last few years – even with the [Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s] incredibly meagre funding – because farmers see where this can work and they know they rely on ICMSA’s support for the scheme.”