Louth IFA livestock chairman welcomes changes to Beef Data and Genomics Programme

Louth IFA Livestock Chairman Peter McEneaney, has welcomed the announcement from the Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed of the simplification to some of the requirements for the Beef Data and Genomics Programme.

Mr McEneaney said that the flexibility provided for farmers in relation to the stock bull requirement in the programme is helpful and in line with some of the requests put forward by IFA specifically on this issue.

The IFA had put detailed requests to the Department of Agriculture on these requirements, and it believes it is important that the Minister has committed that his Department officials will be in contact with herdowners over the coming days, who they have identified are not yet meeting the requirement.

Mr McEneaney said the IFA had requested that farmers who purchased a bull which was not four or five star at purchase, but has subsequently been upgraded by ICBF to be four or five star; and farmers who purchased four or five star bulls, believing them to be such, but these bulls were not genotyped; be accommodated under the scheme. The department has now confirmed they will accommodate these changes, he added.

The livestock chairman went on to say that farmers who have bulls on the farm, which will be upgraded to four or five star over the next year automatically on the ICBF database as a result of their genetic evaluation improvement, must also be accommodated. 

Flexibility by the Department regarding implementation and interpretation of the scheme at farm level is key to providing the maximum opportunity for farmers to meet the requirements, Mr McEneaney concluded.