The first of nine information meetings on SCEP took place in Mullingar last Tuesday night.

About 120 farmers attended to hear presentations from Bord Bia, ICBF and the Department of Agriculture. SCEP opened for applications on Monday 20 March and had 300 applications submitted by Tuesday evening.

The biggest issue of contention with farmers on Tuesday night was the requirement to join the Sustainable Beef and Lamb Quality Assurance Scheme (SBLAS).

Damien Murray from Bord Bia said the reason for the QA requirement was due to the area of sustainability and capturing carbon output on farms. Murray said that about 53% of BDGP participants are currently in the QA scheme, so they would be expecting 8,000 to 10,000 new applications in the next couple of months.

“We are currently seeing about 300 new applications coming in each week and we have contracted extra auditors to deal with the increasing number of applications. Farmers should give two months for their initial application to be fully approved, so my advice is to act now and don’t leave it until the last minute.”

Questions

A number of questions were raised around the reference figure and whether there was leeway in certain circumstances to change this, for example where a herd number was taken over by a young person in the last few years and cow numbers had increased in 2021 but were low before that.

Peter Harte from the Department of Agriculture said that they would look at certain cases on a case-by-case basis, and if an applicant can demonstrate that there is a case for a higher reference number, they will look into that. Harte said: “The most important thing is to get the application in and then we can look at it. If there is no application in, we can’t do anything for that person.”

Chris Daly from ICBF outlined some of the genetic targets in the scheme:

“There is a worry out there that farmers won’t be able to hit the new targets, but 98% of BDGP-participants hit the targets in year five. We looked at these herds and 75% of them would hit the higher targets in year five of SCEP with the animals they have in their herds at the moment, so there isn’t a lot to worry about.”

Case Study 1

A farmer with a reference number of 11 cows is allocated a minimum payable area (MPA) of 7.33 (MPA/1.5). To be paid in full, this farmer must declare 7.33ha of eligible forage area on their BISS application. Payment is calculated at €225/ha on the 7.33 MPA (€1,650 or €150/cow), provided all other scheme requirements are met.

Case Study 2

A farmer with a reference number of 35 cows is allocated an MPA of 23.33 (MPA/1.5). To be paid in full, this farmer must declare 23.33ha of eligible forage area on their BISS application. Payment is calculated at €225/ha on the first 15ha (€3,375) and €180/ha on the remaining 8.33ha (€1,500), meaning a total payment of €4,875 will be issued once all other scheme requirements have been met.