When the BEAM scheme was opened in August 2019, many farmers joined with the money in mind. It was a much-needed boost after a very difficult 2018 and went some way towards shoring up losses made on finishing cattle in the previous months. As the scheme was payment first and meet the conditions later, some have forgotten about the scheme conditions.

One of the most contentious issues with it was the requirement to reduce the bovine nitrogen produced on the farm holding by 5%. As the scheme was partly EU-funded and this was a requirement from the EU, there was no choice but to comply with the conditions to fund the scheme. Many farmers are now grappling with what way to reduce stock numbers. While some have reduced numbers, many have stuck their heads in the sand until now, expecting the stock reduction issue to be resolved. However, the only person who can resolve it is you.

Stock numbers

The reference period was 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019 and the period that the reduction is required for is 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021. The nitrogen figure is the total nitrogen produced from cattle on your holding between the dates above. It is not your stocking rate figure so renting additional land won’t make you compliant.

Nitrogen produced from sheep or other animals on your holding is not calculated – it is just the bovine nitrogen. It is important to remember that if you don’t reduce livestock from July, the total amount you will have to reduce by will increase as the 12 months goes on to hit the 5% reduction in June 2021. For example, if you didn’t reduce stock from July 2020 to December 2020 you will need to reduce stock numbers by 10% from January 2021 to June 2021 to hit the 5% reduction target.

Participants must also have been members of the Bord Bia Quality Assurance scheme or an agri-environmental scheme such as BDGP, BEEP, GLAS or the Organic Farming Scheme. The Department of Agriculture has indicated that for farms that are locked up with TB and cannot sell cattle, force majeure will apply and they need to contact the Department of Agriculture to make them aware of this.

With time moving on, the longer you leave the stock reduction the bigger the stock reduction will need to be. It’s important to have a plan in place to meet the requirements of the scheme.

Checking the reduction

Participants in BEAM can log in to their agfood account at www.agriculture.gov.ie. Once logged in, you need to select the Beef Exceptional Aid option on the menu on the home screen.

The next step is to click applications on the top left hand corner of the Exceptional Aid home screen. Then select your application and click view application. This will then show the number of animals you were paid on last year.

Under the Bovine Livestock Manure heading, it displays the nitrogen produced on your holding during the reference period and the amount required to be between July 2020 and June 2021, ie the reduction in nitrogen required. There is also a section to show you rolling nitrogen statements for the 12-month period starting in July 2019. This gives a picture of where current stock levels are at.

Tullamore Farm: Case study

Tullamore Farm joined the BEAM scheme in 2019 and received a payment of €10,400. This was made up of 88 animals (88*€100) slaughtered during the reference period and we were over the maximum number of 40 cows (40*€40). Attaining the payment was the easy part, but reducing stock numbers has been harder. Tullamore Farm was lucky that in 2017/2018 there was a dairy calf-to-beef enterprise on the farm and this meant stock numbers were elevated in the later half of 2018 and for the first few months of 2019.

As the sheep enterprise expanded, the dairy calf-to-beef enterprise was discontinued so cattle numbers are now lower. Table 2 shows the nitrogen produced from 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019 was 11,838kg. A 5% reduction means that the bovine nitrogen produced needs to be below 11,246kg during the period from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021, a reduction of 592kg. This would have meant a reduction of eight cows for the full 12 months.

Table 3 shows projected stock numbers for the rest of the reference period. It’s still a close call and a number of other actions will be taken to make sure we come in under the target. Nine heifers that would usually be finished in January/February were sold as stores in October. Cull cows have also been offloaded quicker this year. Seven of the 2020-born bulls have been castrated and will be sold in May to make way for seven replacement heifers.

Comment

I have talked to a few farmers in the last few weeks and some are contemplating paying back the BEAM money as opposed to reducing stock numbers. Some of these farmers have payments in excess of €5,000. Farmers need to think hard about this. How many extra cattle would you need to keep to net €5,000 before the end of June 2021. There is huge confusion out there on reducing stock numbers and some finishers are getting apprehensive about buying more cattle until more clarification on their stock numbers is given. The Department needs to provide detailed figures for BEAM participants on where they stand and what is required for scheme compliance. 2021 has the potential to be a difficult year for beef finishers. Recouping thousands of euros from farmers because of non-compliance with BEAM could prove troublesome for the Department. Sit down and do the sums. You may not need to reduce by as much as you think and a few tweaks like selling animals early could get you across the line.