A total of 5,182 farmers who weren’t in the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP) have joined the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) this year.

The majority of these farmers are located along the western seaboard, with 677 farmers applying from Galway, 469 from Mayo, 451 in Clare and 297 in Donegal.

A further 275 of the 5,182 farmers are located in Kerry, 273 are in Roscommon, 192 are in Sligo and 169 are in Leitrim.

In all, farmers along the western seaboard comprise just over half of the new entrants to the scheme who weren’t in BDGP.

The lowest number of applicants to the scheme who weren’t in BDGP were in Dublin with 19 farmers, Louth with 37 farmers and Waterford with 52 applications.

In total, 20,524 farmers applied to the SCEP scheme for 2023. Galway had the highest number of applications with 2,428, while Dublin had the lowest number of applications with 54.

?Overall, SCEP applications were high in Connacht counties, where they totalled 7,090 applications.

Lowest number

The counties with the lowest number of applications are based in the eastern half of the country, with Co Louth only having 163 applications.

Counties Carlow and Kildare both have just above 200 applications, which is approximately 1,000 fewer than were submitted for Co Roscommon.

The lowest number of applications in Munster was from farmers in Co Waterford, where only 243 SCEP applications were submitted.