€5m scheme for beef

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney launched the Beef Technology Adoption Programme (BTAP) at Cillin Hill mart on Monday evening.

He said the programme, which has an annual budget of €5 million, will provide participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to reduce costs and increase profit margins on their farms. ''This programme is a genuine effort to reward farmers for modernising and improving their farm business,'' he said.

profitability

According to the Minister, there is a huge opportunity to increase profitability in beef production but he warned that the sector must focus on the areas over which it has control.

Teagasc director Prof Gerry Boyle said the scheme represents a great opportunity. He highlighted the gulf that exists in the level of performance achieved on the top suckler and beef farms compared with the bottom farms.

''Despite having similar costs, the top performing farms are generating substantially higher levels of output,'' he said. According to Boyle, higher stocking rates achieved through improved grass utilisation were key to driving output in the sector.

He highlighted the financial performance of the Teagasc Grange Derrypatrick herd and the demonstration farms participating in the Teagasc/Irish Farmers Journal BETTER farm programme as examples of what could be achieved by implementing best practice techniques.

Gross margin on the Derrypatrick unit for 2011 was over €1,100/ha while at farm level the gross margin on the demonstration farms has increased by over 100% within just three years. Boyle said that Teagasc would be assigning over 100 advisers to work with farmers participating in the programme.

Meanwhile, IFA president John Bryan welcomed the announcement of the beef discussion group programme. He said: ''The new programme presents a real opportunity for Teagasc to deliver real results for the livestock sector at individual farm level.''

He added that improving technical output, technical efficiency and profitability at farm level are all key objectives in the Food Harvest 2020 plan for the beef sector.

But he warned that increasing profitability remains the major challenge for the livestock sector and that along with increases in efficiency there was also a major responsibility on the processing sector to maintain strong, viable cattle prices.