Last Monday night, IFA Livestock chairmen and county representatives from the five western counties convened a special meeting to discuss issues on the BDGP (Beef Data and Genomics Programme).

The meeting was organised after IFA representatives were confronted with negative feedback from farmers on the scheme, the details of which emerged in last week’s Irish Farmers Journal.

Commenting after the meeting, Connacht IFA chairman Tom Turley said: “We welcome the scheme. It will provide much-needed support for the Irish suckler herd. We encourage farmers to partake in it, providing necessary changes are made to make it workable.’’

The group was dismayed that the scheme would be introduced without any engagement or input from the IFA, other farm organisations, breed societies and AI companies. The group accepted that the data recording elements were of no great concern, nor was genotyping.

Sligo IFA chairman JP Cowley said that the proposed requirement to genotype 60% of the herd per year caused fury among farmers, with many raising issue with the cost of doing so and the level of animal handling required as a result. The replacement strategy outlined in the programme caused much debate and widespread anger as many farmers would have to change their farming system to fulfill the requirement.

This was followed by concern over the reliability of the replacement index itself and the premise of forcing breeding changes on suckler farmers based on what they called an unproven index. The area of penalties attracted much debate also with many representatives voicing issue with the restrictions on participating farmers in reducing cow numbers for the duration of the six-year programme as clawbacks could apply.