One of the measures announced under Beef Roundtable talks in recent months has been the development of blueprints for use by farmers outlining the different beef production systems.

Teagasc is developing the blueprints and they are set to include lifetime targets, management practices, economics, market requirements etc.

Although the blueprints are to be drawn up by Teagasc it will do so in consultation with other stakeholders including Bord Bia, farm organisations and the meat industry.

At last week’s meeting of the Beef Roundtable Teagasc outlined progress to date on the measure and said it hoped to have the blueprints completed for a possible launch at the National Ploughing Championships in September.

To date, Teagasc and Bord Bia have discussed a possible structure and outline for the blueprints and the different beef systems have been chosen – based on Teagasc research results on inputs and outputs for each system recorded.

Both suckler calf to beef and dairy calf to beef systems are included.

At last weeks Roundtable meeting Teagasc outlined what the blueprints might look like:

  • Two pages in length
  • Short description of the system
  • Target live weights at the different stages of production
  • Suckler systems starting with a weanling
  • Dairy calf to beef systems starting with a weaned calf
  • Management guidelines to achieve the targets
  • Inputs required
  • Grass, Silage, Concentrates, no. finished per ha (170 Org. N limit)
  • Economics – farmer completes
  • Market considerations
  • General considerations e.g. risks

Next steps

In the next couple of weeks Teagasc says it will be circulating draft blueprints to all stakeholders with all parties then to agree on the final common format and content

It said the blueprints can be made available for printing individually and in one publication (with a common introduction & summary). Teagasc also said the option of online interactive calculator for farmers to do their own financial budget using the recommended inputs and outputs is also being examined.