Farmers given option of 2022 BEAM nitrogen reduction period
Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue last night welcomed a decision by the European Commission to allow Ireland the flexibility of a new nitrogen reduction period for the Beef Emergency Aid Measure (BEAM).
Minister McConalogue recently asked the Commission for flexibility to offer farmers the choice of changing the reduction year from the existing July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 year, to a new period of January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2021.
Now, farmers can opt to apply for the new nitrogen reduction period.
Those farmers on track to meet the 5% nitrogen reduction targets can use the original reference period ending June 30.
Funded by the EU and Ireland, BEAM provided aid to beef farmers. Since 2019, 33,445 farmers have received €77.72 million as part of the scheme.
But participating farmers agreed to reduce production of bovine manure nitrogen on their holdings by 5%, by June 30, 2021. This was one of the conditions under which €50, was granted for BEAM by the EU. Minister McConalogue said, “As the European Commission is a significant funder of BEAM, it was critical that they were consulted on Ireland’s proposed change.
“The option of a new reduction period now gives those farmers who want it a second opportunity to meet the nitrogen reduction requirement of the scheme.”
“Now that this flexibility has been secured, I will be intensifying our engagement with farm organisations and agricultural consultants to ensure their members and clients are fully informed of the requirements of the scheme, and the new reduction period.
“My Department will be writing to all of the scheme participants shortly giving updated nitrogen figures to clearly inform them of what they need to do to meet the requirements of the scheme, and will also be giving advice on how and when they can opt to change the reduction year. I was extremely concerned about the outcome facing many farmers under the current reduction period,” Minister McConalogue said.
He had revealed recently that only about 14,000 BEAM participating farmers were meeting the 5% reduction requirement.
He also said participants are provided with figures for organic bovine nitrogen produced on their holding for 12-month periods, updated monthly, based on information from his Department’s Animal Identification and Movements (AIM) system, which is constantly being updated.
However, there is a five-week interval before nitrogen data for each farm is extracted from AIM, in order to allow data on calvings, movements, etc to “settle”, and to provide for the 27-day registration rule for calves. As a result, existing data is accurate to the end of November, and data up to December 31 will be available in the coming weeks.
The five-week delay in calculating bovine manure nitrogen would mean the nitrogen position on farms at the original June 30, 2021, deadline would not be known until about August 4.
Minister McConalogue said an online BEAM calculator is being developed which will inform participants how much of their target figure they have used, and allow them predict what effect changes to their herd would have on their figures.
BEAM was provided to support Irish beef farmers whose beef prices fell due to market disturbance.
