The Cap Strategic Plan (CSP) Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme is a new addition introduced under the current CAP. Year two of the scheme opened for applications in 2025 with 1,947 applicants joining the 13,155 applications received in 2024. The Department outlined earlier this year that farmers who applied in year one were automatically rolled over to year two, unless they were removed or sought to withdraw from the scheme.
The Cap Strategic Plan (CSP) Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme is a new addition introduced under the current CAP. Year two of the scheme opened for applications in 2025 with 1,947 applicants joining the 13,155 applications received in 2024.
The Department outlined earlier this year that farmers who applied in year one were automatically rolled over to year two, unless they were removed or sought to withdraw from the scheme.
The scheme is relatively straightforward with only one action related to satisfying breeding metrics as outlined below. It offers payment of €20/head up to a maximum of 50 eligible calves born from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025.
The terms and conditions state that in the case of the scheme being oversubscribed, the number of calves eligible for payment may be reduced.
Applicants will be required to have calves born in the scheme year which must be sired by a three-, four- or five-star stock bull or AI sire.
Three criteria for sires
Sires must be:
1) genotyped (have a genomic evaluation).
2) a minimum of a three-star rating on the dairy beef index within and/or across breed.
3) a minimum of three-star rating on the Beef Sub-Index of the DBI
within and/or across breed.
AI sires must have this rating in the preceding year, ie, minimum three-stars in 2024 for 2025-born calves. Stock bulls must have a genomic evaluation in the scheme year for calves born in that year.
Checking eligibility
The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) explains there is a screen available to all dairy farmers on their ICBF online account to see if the sires they are using are eligible. This facility also allows farmers to check the number of calves born on their farm that are eligible for payment. This is available to advisers for their authorised farmer clients also.
This screen can be accessed when farmers log into their ICBF account and go to Services -> Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme on the desktop version when they login from laptop or PC. The screen will also show the bulls that were used and if they are eligible or not. Any stock bulls in the herd are also displayed on this screen and their eligibility status is shown.
Farmers can also check the eligibility of stock bulls prior to purchasing them or AI bulls before starting the breeding season by checking the eligibility of the bulls on the Animal Search.
When the tag number or AI code of the bull is put into the animal search -> select Dairy Beef and click on the DWBS Eligibility tab. This will show if either the stock bull will be eligible prior to purchase or the AI bulls selected are eligible for the scheme. Missing sires
If there are calves in your herd that are missing sires, there is a recording screen available to farmers on their ICBF account to record it.
This screen can be accessed by logging in and going to record events -> missing sires.
This recording facility to update missing sires is also available on the ICBF HerdPlus app to record on smartphone or tablet devices.
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