More than 3,000 beef finishers in NI have not signed up to receive headage payments under the new Beef Carbon Reduction (BCR) scheme.

To avail of the scheme, participants are initially required to “opt in” by completing a short application on DAERA online services.

“Based on analysis of data that DAERA holds, the department anticipated that 9,580 farm businesses were likely to be eligible for BCR in 2024,” a DAERA spokesperson said.

However, only 6,542 of these businesses have completed the opt-in process so far, meaning 3,038 beef finishers have yet to register for the scheme.

“Farm businesses can opt-in for BCR at any time. However, a farm business must opt-in by 31 December 2024 to receive a payment for the 2024 scheme year,” the spokesperson said.

A payment of £75/head is available under BCR for all NI-born prime cattle that are slaughtered under 30 months of age from April 2024 onwards.

Lower payment rates of £20, £40 and £60 were initially made available during January, February and March respectively.

Payments under BCR for the 2024 scheme year are to be issued in March 2025.

The slaughter age criteria for the scheme will drop each year and is set be 28 months in 2025, 27 months in 2026 and 26 months in 2027.

A minimum retention period is in place for BCR, so the payment only goes to the person who owned each animal for at least 60 days during the last 100 days of its life.

Opt in once

The opt-in process for BCR only has to be completed once, so opting in for payments in 2024 automatically gives eligibility for all subsequent years.

All farm businesses in NI can opt-in to BCR and DAERA figures show that 14,687 farms have completed the process so far.

The figures suggest over 8,000 of these farm businesses are unlikely to slaughter cattle in 2024.

Presumably, most of these farmers registered for BCR in case they do start finishing cattle, such as in the event of TB movement restrictions being put in place.