Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has today (Wednesday, August 13) confirmed that the 2025 Beef Welfare Scheme is now open for applications.

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

The scheme supports farmers in meal feeding suckler calves at weaning and will allow them to undertake other voluntary actions to maximise their scheme payments.

As in previous years, all suckler farmers who have eligible calves born on their holdings between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025 are eligible to apply for this scheme.

Applications must be lodged online through the Agfood.ie online portal before the closing date of September 24, 2025.

Late applications will not be accepted in order to ensure that payments to participants who have passed all the necessary validation checks can commence in December 2025.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) noted that the meal feeding action is mandatory under the Beef Welfare Scheme.

Farmers have the option to vaccinate calves against clostridial diseases and/or calf pneumonia as well as to carry out faecal testing or forage testing where it suits their production systems.

The payment rates for the Beef Welfare Scheme are as follows:

Action 1 – Meal Feeding (mandatory): the rate of payment is €35 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves;
Action 2 – Vaccination (optional): The rate of payment is €15 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves;
Action 3 – Faecal Testing / Forage Testing (optional): The rate of payment is €25 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves.

Farmers or their advisor must indicate at application stage which, if any, voluntary actions they intend to complete.

They will have the option at application stage of selecting a lower number of animals for the vaccination action than for the meal feeding action, if they so wish.

If the testing action is selected, the number of animals eligible for payment will be the number of animals selected for meal feeding at application stage.

DAFM said that in the event of the scheme being oversubscribed, a reduction in the maximum number of animals eligible for payment may be applied on one or more actions.

Minister Heydon said that this year’s scheme, which is worth €28 million, represents "a substantial increase in funding compared to 2024".

"To give farmers the maximum opportunity to plan, I announced details of this scheme back in April.

"These practical measures are aimed at optimising animal performance throughout its lifetime," he said.

Suckler farmers can simultaneously participate in both the BWS and the five-year Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP).

Farmers who take part in both schemes will be eligible to earn up to €225 per cow/calf pair for the first 22 pairs in a herd.

DAFM reminded farmers to retain copies of receipts for the meal feeding and for the vaccination and testing actions, if they also choose those options.

BWS participants who are also participating in the Parasite Control Consult under the Targeted Advisory Service on Animal Health (TASAH) and who wish to carry out the faecal egg count action under that scheme should not select the faecal count option in the 2025 BWS.