A new €20m enhanced Beef Environmental Efficiency Programme (BEEP) scheme, worth €20/calf to farmers, is to open in the coming weeks.

The Irish Farmers Journal understands the scheme will be open to both new entrants and those already in the scheme. It will be known as BEEP Plus and will be an add-on to the scheme announced last year.

How it works

The scheme will see farmers paid €20/calf from a €10m fund if they vaccinate suckler calves against respiratory diseases or meal feed them four weeks pre-weaning and two weeks post-weaning. A second €10m will see farmers paid €20/calf if they weigh dairy beef calves.

IFA president Tim Cullinan said an increase in suckler payments under the BEEP scheme is positive but suckler farmers need to get to €300 per cow

The funding will bring to €40m the total money available to farmers under the BEEP scheme. The funding for the scheme was promised under Budget 2020 by the Government.

IFA president Tim Cullinan said an increase in suckler payments under the BEEP scheme is positive but suckler farmers need to get to €300 per cow.

Scheme background

The BEEP scheme was launched in January 2019 by Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed and beef breed animals born between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019 were eligible.

The scheme pays farmers €40 per cow and calf unit weighed. Farmers did not have to be part of another scheme, such as the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP) to take part.

The original scheme targeted 500,000 cow and calf pairs, but in the region of 385,000 pairs were weighed. Some €15.4m has already been paid out to 16,529 farmers under the scheme.