Galway has the highest number of cows registered in the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP), figures from the Department of Agriculture show.

A total of 52,672 cows are enrolled under BDGP I and II in the county, in 2,745 herds.

Galway is followed by Clare with 41,522 cows and Cork with 38,342 cows in the programme.

Mayo and Tipperary, with 37,052 and 30,560 cows respectively, complete the top five counties with the highest number of cows in the BDGP scheme.

Meanwhile, Dublin has the lowest in the programme, with 1,453, followed by Louth with 5,485 cows.

Kildare, Carlow and Wicklow were the next three lowest counties in terms of cow numbers, with 9,089, 9,797 and 12,018 cows respectively.

Total cows

In total, there are 534,788 cows across the country in the programme, with 24,671 herds.

The first tranche of the scheme saw 505,850 cows enter, followed by 28,938 in tranche two.

In 2016, over 1,300 herds exited the BDGP, which left approximately 22,802 herds in the programme.

It reopened for a second tranche earlier this year and 1,527 herds signed up, bringing 28,938 additional cows into the programme.

Carbon navigators

The Department of Agriculture confirmed to the Irish Farmers Journal that a total of 870 herds – 720 in BDGP I and 150 in BDGP II – were disqualified from the scheme for not having completed a carbon navigator, a requirement of the scheme.

The terms and conditions of the scheme also state that disqualified farmers will be subject to “clawback of all payments for previous years”.

BDGP payments

In the latest payment update from the Department available at the time of writing, as of 29 December, some €38.2m in BDGP payments have issued to 21,295 farmers.

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Map: how many exited BDGP in your county?

€37m in BDGP payments to issue