Calls have been made for the Department of Agriculture to extend the deadline for the BDGP and BEEP schemes.

Under the BDGP scheme, farmers must have a certain percentage of four or five €uro star females in their herd, while the BEEP scheme requires that farmers weigh cows and calves and complete any other options, including meal feeding or vaccination and dung sampling.

The deadline for both schemes is the end of October.

IFA has also called for flexibility on the tolerances for meeting the 50% requirement

IFA national livestock chair Brendan Golden has called on the Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue to provide a 'grace' period for farmers who have yet to meet the 50% female replacement criteria in the BDGP scheme.

Golden pointed out the disruptions to trade, including the IT glitch that caused the cancellation of four sales on Saturday.

“IFA has also called for flexibility on the tolerances for meeting the 50% requirement where farmers are within one animal of meeting the 90% compliance, or full compliance with this measure. Penalties for falling below 90% compliance are severe, and recognition must be given to farmers where they are within one animal of the threshold,” he said.

Urgent situation

ICSA suckler chair Ger O’Brien said that in regards to submitting dung samples under the BEEP scheme, the situation had become urgent.

He said some farmers were having difficulty acquiring the necessary kits to undertake the sampling and that labs were having difficulty processing the sheer volume of samples they were receiving.

The issue is causing much confusion among farmers and requires further clarification

He also called for clarity from the Department in regards to submiting meal feeding documents under the scheme.

“ICSA understands that this is not a requirement for all BEEP-S participants and applies only to farmers who have received a specific instruction to submit such documentation. However, the issue is causing much confusion among farmers and requires further clarification from the Department,” O’Brien said.