Just under €44m has been issued to 23,930 farmers in the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP), according to figures from the Department of Agriculture.

Galway has received the highest total amount (Figure 1), with €4.2m paid to nearly 2,600 farmers, 1,800 of whom have been fully paid. It also has the highest total number of farmers taking part in the BDGP. Mayo follows with 2,240. Clare and Cork received the second-highest total payments, receiving €3.4m and €3.2m respectively.

Clare has just over 1,800 farmers in the programme and Cork has close to 1,700. For those farmers who have only been partly paid to date, on average the percentage of payment left to pay in each county is less than 8%. With an original budgetary allocation of €52m, there is €8m left to be distributed in BDGP payments in 2015.

Taking into account the total payment made to each county so far and the total number of participants per county, Waterford, Kilkenny and Wexford received the highest average payment/farm.

The Department wrote to all participants who had outstanding data or genotype test samples in July advising them to return them by the end of July.

Requirements

“Partial payment has been made to a further 7,026 herds who did not meet all of the requirements,” a spokesperson for the Department said.