Beef farm discussion groups aim

FUNDING has been allocated by Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney in a bid to extend the farmer discussion group methods which have been a success in the dairy sector into the beef sector.

“We have put an estimate in place because we want to try to replicate the success of the dairy efficiency groups and extend that to the beef sector,” said the Minister.

Funding support is also being sought from the private sector, to put in place a form of beef discussion groups which would get beef farmers talking to each other, meeting Teagasc advisers and learning about and adopting best practice. Mr Coveney said, “It is not as easy to do that in the beef sector, because there are many more farmers. There are only 17,000 dairy farmers but there are approximately 80,000 beef farmers. There are approximately 34,000 beef farmers in the suckler cow premium scheme. Even if one were to get all of them into discussion groups, which would be highly desirable, one is talking about more than 30,000 people. There are only 6,000 people or so in the dairy discussion groups which have been seen as a huge success in terms of the number involved.”