With the Brexit beef fund now fully ratified by both the EU and Irish Government, the big question is how the €100m will be paid out to farmers.

The AIMS database will be hugely beneficial in ascertaining when cattle were slaughtered, what type of herd they came from, whether that’s a farmer, feedlot or an agent. Department of Agriculture figures can show what price cuts were incurred. AIMS can also identify finished cattle sold through marts.

To target the money at beef farmers, the income situation on the farm could be taken into account and the main enterprise on the farm should be suckler cows/beef finishing.

There are several options for how the money could be paid, outlined below.

The issue with the examples are that they are blanket payments and not based on the actual losses occurred.

A mechanism where actual price cuts could be paid out would be fairer.

While industry sources would suggest that factory feedlot cattle are approximately 5% of the national kill, during the months between October and March, this figure is probably closer to 10%.

Option 1

Pay a slaughter premium on all cattle, including cows, slaughtered between 1 October 2018 and 31 March 2019.

  • There were 895,577 cattle slaughtered in that period. This would give a retrospective payment of €111 per animal slaughtered – including all feedlot cattle. It would rise by €10 to €121 if an estimated 70,791 factory-controlled feedlot cattle were excluded.

    • Option 2

    Pay a slaughter premium on all prime cattle and exclude cows.

  • There were 187,661 cows slaughtered in the October to March period. Some €100m divided by the remaining 707,916 cattle would give a payment of €141 per animal on all steers, heifers and bulls slaughtered. It would rise to €156/head if factory feedlot cattle are excluded.

    • Option 3

    Issue a suckler cow payment on all suckler cows, plus a smaller slaughter premium on prime cattle.

  • There are currently 951,397 suckler cows in the country. If €50m was paid on suckler cows, this would equate to €52/cow. The remaining €50m could be paid via slaughter premium on 637,125 finished animals – excluding cows and factory feedlot cattle. This would generate a €78/head payment on all prime cattle.

    • Option 4

    A blanket payment to all specialist beef farms

  • A blanket payment to all 78,000 specialist beef farms would result in a payment of €1,280 per farm. This would widen the net and bring more farmers in line for payments but it would be less effective in underpinning losses on finishing farms.