Some 843 farmers in the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP) have been hit with €639,358 in penalty reductions for failing to meet the replacement stock bull requirement.

Under the scheme, farmers were required to have a genotyped four- or five-star stock bull in their herd by 30 June last year.

The average penalty was €758 per farmer. The penalties will concern many participants in the scheme, as even more farmers have been warned that they are not on track to meet the scheme’s replacement female target this year.

ICBF issued letters to 2,997 farmers warning them they would miss their €uro-Star target last November.

Farmers in the scheme are required to have 50% of their replacement females genotyped as four or five €uro-Stars by 31 October 2020.

Suggestions

The letter informed farmers that it was now too late to breed heifers reaching that €uro-Star value and provided them with a list of suggestions, including purchasing new stock which met the ICBF requirement.

Missing the replacement female target carries the highest percentage penalty in the BDGP scheme.

Farmers who fail to achieve a 90% compliance rate face losing their female replacement payment for 2020 and a clawback of payments for the previous year, as stated in the scheme’s terms and conditions.

Almost one-third of farmers (7,781) have dropped out of the scheme since its inception.

Draft plans

However, under draft plans put forward by the Department of Agriculture, it wants to see an increase in the €uro-Star replacement index of the suckler cow with a target to have 75% of herds in a genomic programme. Currently, roughly 40% of the suckler herd is in BDGP.

The Department pointed out that €36,116,681 had been paid to 20,028 farmers for the 2019 scheme year, with payments issuing to remaining farmers in the coming weeks.

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