Scheme oversubscription 'should be treated as a success, not an excuse to slash payments'
It has been described as "outrageous" that the number of eligible calves that can be paid on in the National Dairy Beef Weighing Scheme will be cut.
Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association (ICSA) president, Sean McNamara spoke following the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine telling stakeholders that, under the scheme, over 305,000 calves were weighed by the deadline of November 1.
“The €4 million allocated to the scheme would have paid for 200,000 calves," McNamara said.
"However, after more than 305,000 calves were weighed by the deadline, farmers are being told that up to 40% of their work will go unpaid after the department slashed the number of calves farmers will be paid on.
"They will now receive a payment for a maximum of 31 calves instead of 50. That is completely unacceptable."
McNamara said ICSA is calling on Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon to immediately increase the budget so that all calves weighed and submitted by the deadline are paid in full.
Beef and sheep welfare schemes
McNamara said this is even more concerning as this comes on top of payment cuts to other schemes.
Under the National Beef Welfare Scheme, due to oversubscription, the payment rate to farmers will be €67/calf rather that €75/calf.
Under the National Sheep Welfare Scheme, payment of €11.50/ewe will be made instead of €13/ewe.
“Oversubscription should be treated as a success, not an excuse to slash payments," McNamara said.
"If more farmers sign up, then the department should have contingency funds in place to ensure full payment.
"Otherwise, farmers will rightly lose faith.
"It is ridiculous to expect farmers to budget on a scheme only to get hit with a payment 40% lower than expected.
"We cannot have a situation where the more farmers engage, the more the department cuts.”
McNamara added that all scheme payment rates "should be moving up, not down, especially when costs are rising and inflation continues to be a big factor".
"Repeated short-changing leaves a bad taste and breeds disillusionment amongst farmers trying to do their best. This cannot continue," he said.
