There are concerns within the industry that all funding allocated to the BEEP scheme will not be drawn down as a result of weigh-ins not being completed or submitted by Friday 1 November. To date, 632,482 of the 829,326 weights required as part of the programme have been submitted. Farmers who have weighed in the past week are urged to submit weights to ICBF as soon as possible and before next Friday 1 November to ensure there are no issues with payment.

BEEP background

The Beef Environmental Efficiency Pilot (BEEP) was launched by Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed TD on Wednesday 30 January 2019. Funding of €20m was made available by the Department of Agriculture for the pilot, which aimed to capture on-farm liveweights of about 500,000 cows and their calves. The payment rate is €40/calf once a number of criteria are met including weighing the cow and calf on the same day before weaning. All suckler-bred calves (beef sire x beef dam) born from 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019 are eligible for payment. Weighing must be completed by Friday 1 November, with weights submitted to the ICBF by this date also. Providing all criteria is met payment is expected to issue in December 2019.

Progress

Weighing has been taking place on farms since spring 2019 and to-date about 76% of the cattle in the herds signed up to the scheme have been weighed. 632,482 weights on cows and calves have been submitted. Table 1 outlines the county by county breakdown of participants and herd size.

There are just over 400,000 cows signed up, meaning there will be about €16.5m spent of the €20m allocated. Average suckler herd size for BEEP participants is 22, with the smallest average herd size of 14 in Leitrim and the largest average herd size of 33 in Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford. Cork has made the most progress in terms of submitting weights, with 82% of weights submitted, while Louth remains the lowest in terms of progress made with just 69% of weights submitted. The average payment across the country will be €880 provided all animals in BEEP herds qualify for payment. The highest payment of €1,320/herd will go to Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford, while the lowest payment of €560/herd will go to Leitrim herds.

Replacement Index performance

Weight analysis completed by ICBF has indicated a positive correlation between the genetic index of the dam and the weight of weanlings. Table 2 shows that five-star cows weighed as part of the BEEP scheme have an average index of €127, weighed 631kg and weaned a calf at 302kg (all weaning weights are adjusted to 200-day weights) operating on a 48% weaning efficiency percentage. The percentage is calculated by dividing the cow weight by the weaning weight. At the other end of the scale, one-star cows have an average replacement index of €28, weighing 657kg, weaning a calf at 293kg and operating on a weaning efficiency of 45%. Five-star cows are coming in 26kg lighter, weaning calves 9kg heavier.

Breed comparison

If we compare the dams on weaning efficiency on a breed basis, the Hereford comes out on top, with the Charolais cows coming out on the bottom. Table 3 outlines the six main breeds of cow type weighed as part of the scheme and what their weaning efficiency is.

Hereford cows weighed 611kg and weaned calves at 309kg with a weaning efficiency figure of 50.5%. Charolais cows came in the heaviest at 693kg, weaning a calf at 307kg operating on a weaning efficiency of 44%.