The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) is calling on the government to increase supports for suckler farms to combat the decline in the industry.

The association claims there has been a roughly 15% drop in the number of suckler calf births over the last three years and they expect this trend to continue.

ICSA chair Jimmy Cosgrave has asked for an urgent investment in the sector to halt this decline.

“The reality is that government funding for sucklers is going down instead of up.

“We are in danger of losing something very important here, and it is imperative that preventative action is taken.”

Underfunded schemes

The ICSA claim that the old BEEP-S scheme was worth €40m but its replacement, the National Beef Welfare Scheme (NBWS), was only given a budget of €20m this year which was also down €8m from when it was first announced.

Additionally, of the €28m allocated to the NBWS in its first year only €14.2m was drawn down by suckler farmers.

“This shows how badly designed the scheme is and demonstrates the lack of any genuine commitment to supporting the suckler sector,” said Cosgrave.

Beef Welfare Scheme

Suckler farmers saw their incomes fall by 15% to just €7,425 in 2023.

The ICSA feel the first way to stop this decrease is to allocate greater funding to the suckler sector in Budget 2025 through a revamped Beef Welfare Scheme.

This would include increased payments for meal feeding and vaccination, adding a payment for myostatin testing and animal welfare protocols around weaning and dehorning, and removing the cap limiting payments to 40 eligible animals.

“Grants are available to dairy farmers with up to 120 cows which is a recognition that it takes more than 40 cattle to earn a full time living and perfectly illustrates the need for this cap to be reconsidered,” Cosgrave added.