The Department of Agriculture is urging farmers participating in the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP) to return outstanding genomic samples as soon as possible to avoid incurring penalties.

The official deadline for submitting BDGP samples was on 7 December last year, but the Department is waiting on 6,955 to be submitted.

“If the outstanding samples are submitted without delay the Department will process payments for these cases as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson for the Department said.

If under 80% selected animals in a herd are genotyped, then there will no payment issued from the Department for genotyping that year.

However, the Department has recently stipulated that smaller herds with fewer than 11 animals will be permitted to miss one genomic test.

To date, 21,768 farmers in BDGP I and II have been paid almost €39m for 2017.

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