The issue of paying a bonus for cattle over 30 months has to come into question given the direction of travel the beef sector wants take in relation to earlier finishing, Meat Industry Ireland (MII) director Dale Crammond has said.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal at the launch of MII’s beef sector sustainability report on Thursday, Crammond said that there is a commitment there to roll out a plan as to how farmers can be incentivised to finish cattle earlier.

“Following the launch, one of the next steps will be to meet with the [beef factory] members and have a conversation with them.

“There’s been no decisions taken around any of that at this point.

"If you do look at it and look at where we want to go as an industry in terms of that earlier finishing piece, the issue of paying a bonus over 30 months does have to come into question.

Dale Crammond

“That will be something we’ll sit down with the members and discuss. Ultimately, they will make any decision in relation to this, it won’t be Meat Industry Ireland,” he said.

Beef factory members of MII will have to look at what potential incentives they want to put on the table as part of this, he said.

Emissions

The body representing the factories launched its sustainability report on Thursday, which contains 11 actions to reduce emissions from the sector.

One of the actions is to reduce scope three emissions by 30% by 2030 and this would reduce absolute emissions at farm level by this amount.

The actions that farmers will be expected to carry out to hit this 30% reduction will include earlier finishing of stock and the other actions in the plan.

“We can improve the emissions intensity of the production of beef, but, essentially, by doing that, we’re going to reduce absolute overall emissions. That’s essentially where we want to take this.

“We have a 25% reduction target for the agri-food sector as a whole. The challenge is now to look at what the beef sector can do to contribute to that 25% reduction target,” he said.

Read more

Factories want to cut beef farm emissions by 30%

Genotyping the herd could deliver net benefit of €650m

Meat factory warning on young bulls