The fallout continues ahead of the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) rollout of updated terminal and replacement beef indices on Tuesday (28 November) at 3pm.

The Irish Farmers Journal understands that a heated discussion took place at a pedigree breeders council meeting late last week.

A proposal was made to take out a court injunction against the planned rollout of the updated indices, but it failed to get the backing of the full council.

In the end, three breed societies backed the proposal. The Irish Charolais Cattle Society, the Irish Simmental Cattle Society and the Irish Blonde d'Aquitaine society all voted to proceed with the injunction, which would see the planned rollout delayed for a number months.

Independent review call

There were also calls from a number of breed societies for an independent review of the make-up of the new index at the meeting.

The planned changes are due to go live on the ICBF website at 3pm on Tuesday and farmers who want to see how their individual animals have changed in terms of values and ranking will be able to log in to their Herdplus account and take a look at the updated figures.

The ICBF and Teagasc will attend a meeting in the Bush Hotel in Carrick-on-Shannon on Tuesday night at 8pm to brief farmers on the indices and why the changes came about.

Other news

In other news, a second Roscommon Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) branch has deferred voting in the IFA presidential election.

Elphin IFA branch didn’t vote at its annual general meeting last Wednesday night on the back of frustration at the lack of communication it has received from IFA members on the board on the proposed changes.