The first area where confusion arose is with the application form requiring details of mountain breeds and the numbers of each breed within the flock. With only the Blackface Mountain and Cheviot breed, or their crosses, listed, questions arose as to farmers being deemed ineligible to draw down payments in hill or mountain areas if they did not have these particular breed types.

The Department has clarified this concern and confirm that this is not the case. It says that the primary objective in commonage, hill and mountain areas is to ensure that these lands are maintained in good agricultural and environmental condition (GAEC).

Where the area is being maintained accordingly, the Department say that the breed of sheep farmed is not an issue and that the breed type will only be brought into the equation where there is evidence that the breed farmed is not suitable to keep the land grazed and maintained in GAEC.

According to the Department, while sheep breeds vary according to the part of the country, the traditional hill breeds are the breeds traditionally grazed on Irish hills, ie Blackface Mountain (Scotch), Newtown Stewart, Swalesdale, Lanarkshire and Cheviots breeds or crosses between these breeds.

Lowland sheep do not have the same grazing habits as hill sheep. If a farmer considers that there are breeds other than those included on the form suitable for hill grazing, details of these breeds can be inserted on the back of the form. The details should include the breed and the numbers in the format required.

The Department also explain that there is no risk of any penalties being applied arising out of the submission of this information in the Sheep Census. The main reasoning in asking for breeds to be listed is to get a more concise picture of the composition of the national sheep breeding flock broken down by breed type and age. The core requirement is to fill the boxes named A, B, C, and D.

The second area causing some unease regards what age of an animal should be listed as a ewe hogget. The department’s classification of a ewe hogget is a sheep born the previous year and, for the 2012 census, this only includes ewe lambs born in 2011.

The focus on collecting this information is to build an accurate picture on whether the national flock is expanding or contracting over time.

Recording information of ewe lambs will not give an accurate enough assessment as a significant percentage of these animals are slaughtered each spring and never actually make their way into the breeding flock.

The number of ewe lambs possessed on the date of census recording should be entered in the box ‘other breeds’.

IFA COMMENT

IFA call for allowances

Following a meeting with the Department of Agriculture last week, IFA national sheep chairman James Murphy said “the Department confirmed that the first part of the Sheep Census form (Part A B C and D) is the official part of the Census and must be completed”.

“The additional aspects on sheep breeds, included for the first time this year, are not officially required and completion is only for the purposes of collecting national sheep breeding statistics.”

He added: “The Department has clarified that the information requested on breeds (lowland and mountain) will not impact on any payment under the various schemes (DAS, Sheep Grassland etc.) for 2013.”

James Murphy is calling on the Department of Agriculture to allow flockowners who have already submitted their application, but who now want to make changes on light of the clarifications listed above, to do so by contacting the Department by phone.

He is also encouraging farmers to tick the box on the census application giving permission to transfer data to Sheep Ireland for breeding purposes commenting that Sheep Ireland is pursuing a positive breeding programme on behalf of farmers and it is essential that they have all the sheep census data available.