The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has deemed a proposed rebrand of the Dairy Beef Calf Programme into the Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme as “irrelevant” unless farmer payments are made more meaningful.
The comments come following a meeting with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine this week and ICMSA representatives.
The chairperson of ICMSA’s Livestock Committee has appealed for any changes to procedure or purpose to strive for simplicity, ease of use and to make the scheme attractive to farmers.
Des Morrison said that it was vital that two facts were kept uppermost in any changes: “In excess of 60% of Ireland’s national kill now originates from the dairy herd; that ratio is not going to change and will probably grow.
“It’s going to mean that we must look for greater integration between the dairy and beef sides.
“ICMSA has always tried to be positive about this scheme. We were the original sponsoring farm organisation. But honestly this kind of tweaking and rebranding is an exercise in irrelevance unless the payments to participating farmers are increased to a meaningful level,” he said.
DBI
Turning to the role that the dairy beef index (DBI) should be playing, Morrison said that every AI (artificial insemination) bull on the DBI should be eligible to sire calves for the Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme.
“If an AI bull on the DBI is not deemed good enough to produce calves for this scheme, then the bull should not be on the DBI in the first place,” Morrison stated.
“All AI bulls on the DBI should be fit for purpose and if the department [thinks] otherwise, then changes need to be made to this system.
“We would also seriously question the exclusion from the scheme of calves out of stock bulls. Calves bred from a stock bull should be eligible for payment,” Morrison added.
Dairy Beef Calf Programme
The current Dairy Beef Calf Programme has a payment of €20/head for a maximum of 40 calves, and it’s understood that to date, no increase in payment rate is envisaged for the Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme with €5 million a year allocated under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
“To be honest, it’s very difficult to work out the logic or thinking behind [the] allocation of €25 million throughout five years,” Morrison continued.
“Compared to other allocations for demonstrably lesser useful schemes, €5 million per year for a dairy calf scheme is derisory.
“The contrast with both the funding and the capacity to deliver lower emissions represented by the organics sector is very instructive – no serious observer thinks that organics makes either the economic or emissions contribution that dairy-beef integration would make, but we have €50 million-odd per annum going on organics while €5 million per annum goes on dairy calf to beef,” he claimed.
The ICMSA has said that there needs to be a change in mindset and funding that will deliver a realistic payment for dairy beef production.