The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has said that the current budget for the Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme is sufficient to cover expected levels of eligible calves.
The objective of the scheme is to provide support to dairy farmers to improve the animal health and welfare of the national dairy herd by using better genetic merit beef sires.
Participants are required to have calves born in the scheme year which must be sired from a stock bull or AI straw with a minimum rating of 3 stars on the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) Dairy Beef Index (DBI) and on the beef sub-index of the DBI.
Farmers who satisfy the scheme requirements will receive a payment of €20 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 50 calves per holding.
The scheme is part of the implementation of the government’s ten-point action plan to support the development of a dairy-beef sector in Ireland.
Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme
The scheme opened for applications on March 21, 2024 and closed for applications on May 15.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) facilitated the acceptance of late applications for a 25-calendar day period after the closing date, at the end of which a total of 13,541 applications had been received.
In a parliamentary question, Fianna Fáil TD Jackie Cahill asked the minister if the budget would be increased “in light of the number of applications”.
In response, Minister McConalogue explained that the scheme is co-funded by the National Exchequer (60%) and the EU (40%).
There is a 4-year allocation of €25 million under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan “equating to an annual budget of €6.25 million covering 312,500 calves per year”.
“A provision for a linear reduction has been included in the scheme terms and conditions,” the minister added.
He said that “preliminary analysis indicates that the number of eligible calves for applicants to the scheme in 2024 is broadly in line with the €6.25 million budget allocation, as some 3,000 of the applications under the scheme currently have no eligible calves”.
He said that DAFM “will continue to monitor eligible calf numbers as the year progresses”.