Over 24,000 farmers have applied for the Beef Welfare Scheme 2026.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has confirmed that a total of 24,821 applications were received by the scheme's closing date of 5:00p.m on September 23, 2026.

"This is an increase of 1.4% from the 2025 Beef Welfare Scheme when 24,476 applications were received," a DAFM spokesperson said.

Co. Galway had the highest number of applications with 3,040, followed by Co. Mayo with 2,643 and Co. Clare with 1,975.

A county breakdown of applicants is below:

The 2026 Beef Welfare Scheme is worth €28 million.

The objective of the scheme is to further increase the economic efficiency of and enhance animal health and husbandry on suckler farms.

Actions to be undertaken to be eligible for payment include meal feeding, which is a mandatory action.

Participants must 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.

Under this action, the rate of payment is up to €35 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves.

Optional actions

Action two is vaccination.

If this optional action is selected at application stage, participants must implement a vaccination programme against clostridial diseases and/or calf pneumonia and/or bluetongue in suckler animals and record details of the vaccination.

The rate of payment is up to €15 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves under this action.

Action three, also optional, is faecal testing / forage testing.

If this action is selected at application stage, participants must carry out two faecal tests (with a minimum of four weeks between each test) for specified parasites and submit for testing, or take three forage samples and submit for testing.

Under this action, the rate of payment is up to €25 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves.

DAFM said payments will commence to cleared cases in December 2026.