Over €70m will be issued to farmers from Thursday of this week under the Beef Exceptional Aid Measure (BEAM).

The money will be issued once the Dáil approves the Department of Agriculture’s supplementary estimates for the year.

Some 70,000 farmers were expected to apply to the scheme, which is worth €100m, but just over 34,500 farmers applied, with these applications accounting for €78.1m.

Over 700 have withdrawn from the scheme to date.

Brexit package

The scheme was launched in July as a result of the impact of Brexit uncertainty on beef prices. A controversial term of the scheme is that farmers have to reduce the level of production of bovine livestock manure nitrogen per farm by 5% between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021.

The scheme was open to beef finishers and suckler farmers and the reference period for the scheme is 24 September 2018 to 12 May 2019,

Eligible suckler cows will receive a €40/head payment, while finished animals are paid at a rate of €100/head.

On average, suckler farmers have applied for 14 cows, equating to a payment of €560. Finishers have applied for 20 cattle on average, amounting to an average payment of €2,000.

The Department of Agriculture said that in the event that BEAM was oversubscribed, payment rates may have been subject to minor revision. However, since the scheme was undersubscribed the headage payments were not increased to ensure the €100m would be spent.

Read more

Over 34,500 farmers apply to €100m BEAM scheme

Genetic gain in sucklers now on par with dairy