DEAR SIR: There are two interesting initiatives being progressed at present. A current application with the EU for PGI (Protected Geographical Indicator) status for grass-fed beef and the promotion of a suckler brand over the next three years, funded to the tune of €6m.

The success of these two initiatives will depend to a large extent on the buy in of farmers on an individual basis, both within the dairy sector and the beef sector, working collectively to produce a product that meets the requirements of the customer.

In the dairy sector, we need greater input from farmers to produce a better beef conformation animal by using a pedigree bull in their herds.

At present on most dairy farms, 60% of herds are inseminated with a dairy bull to deliver replacements, another 20% are inseminated by a beef sire, while the remaining 20% are served by a home breed bull.

It’s the last 20% that is of the greatest concern to the beef farmers as most of this progeny will progress into the beef sector to be finished thus delivering a high cost, low value animal to the beef farmer.

We need to encourage all dairy farmers to source a pedigree bull to serve all their dairy cows that have not been selected for breeding replacements.

In the beef sector, we also need to change the way we go about our breeding practices and focus on producing progeny that have a high maternal index on milk, as milk produced from grass is the most efficient way to drive growth rate, which will deliver monetary and environmental benefits.

We currently have a DNA database, managed by ICBF, which is the envy of all beef producing countries across the world, but it is not fully utilised by our beef breeding sector.

So again, like the dairy sector, we need to encourage beef farmers to engage with this scientific facility to produce a kg of beef in the most efficient and environmentally friendly way possible, which has the added advantage of reducing our GHG emissions within the farm gate on an individual basis.

I would suggest that the most important place to start is by creating a properly funded scheme in the next CAP, within the 30% greening portion of the pillar one funding, to facilitate genotyping the national herd – both dairy and beef.

Science is the future if we have any hope of handing on a viable enterprise to the next generation.

Any other scheme proposing to supplement the industry by providing an increased subsidy on the suckler cow is just maintaining an already loss-making industry.

In my opinion, it’s akin to the widely used definition, credited to Albert Einstein, of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”