New headage payment helps make dairy beef a beefier prospect
Rearing calves born from dairy cows for beef production can be profitable for efficient farmers, and they will be helped from 2023 onwards by a €20 per head payment proposed in the CAP Strategic Plan. Picture: Pamela D McAdams/iStock/Getty Images
Rearing calves born from dairy cows for beef production can be profitable for efficient farmers, and they will be helped from 2023 onwards by a €20 per head payment proposed in the CAP Strategic Plan.
The payment will be for weighing dairy beef animals once during their first year, proposed as a practice to improve the welfare of these male dairy calves.
Farmers who rear or purchase calves born from dairy cows for beef production would be eligible, if they submit a BISS application and are members of the Bord Bia Sustainable Beef and Lamb Assurance Scheme or the Bord Bia Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme for the duration of the one-year calf weighing rolling contract.
The maximum number of eligible animals per applicant is 40.
There is currently no legal requirement for farmers to weigh animals, and it is not standard practice on beef farms.
The thinking behind the proposal is that liveweight, determined by good growth rates for age, is one of the key indicators of animal welfare.
If weighing dairy beef animals in the first year of their lives, farmers will be in a position to take necessary actions to ensure these animals reach target liveweights at different ages.
Failure to reach target liveweights for age can indicate underlying health and welfare issues.
Knowing weights will also enable farmers to administer correct anthelminthic (wormer) doses. This minimises the risk of underestimating weights and giving animals an insufficient anthelminthic dose to deal with their worm burden, which increases the risk of anthelminthic (wormer) resistance.
Through its impact on animal welfare, this intervention also has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Participants will have to purchase or rent specialist weighing scales.
The €20 per head payment is calculated on the basis of costs incurred and income forgone It is proposed that any dairy beef calf born after January 1 in the scheme year is eligible for payment if weighed during a specified period in the calendar year (exact timings to be confirmed, but the weights must be submitted by November 1 annually).
This is one of a number of schemes proposed in the 2023-27 CAP which address antimicrobial/anthelminthic resistance, and animal health and welfare standards.
Researchers found widespread anthelmintic resistance on sampled dairy calf to beef farms in Ireland, and a number of animal health and welfare issues are known to persist in Ireland, such as poor welfare in male dairy calves, and lameness in sheep. Also targeted are a low level of understanding of antimicrobial resistance, and Ireland's lack of an effective monitoring system to accurately monitor antibiotic usage on farms.
Proposed in addition to the Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme is the Sheep Improvement Scheme.
It would support sheep farmers to carry out lameness control, mineral supplementation for ewes after mating, parasite control, and meal feeding for lambs after weaning.
The proposed Sheep Improvement Scheme payment will be €12 per eligible ewe.
There are 46,000 registered flock-keepers in Ireland with 2.57m eligible breeding ewes. Based on participation rates in the current Sheep Welfare Scheme, the anticipated participation rate in the Sheep Improvement Scheme is 16,600 flock-keepers, and about 1.7m ewes.
The risk of antimicrobial resistance will also be reduced by farmers joining the Organic Farming Scheme, designed to expand the area under organic farming in Ireland from less than 2%, to 7.5%.
The Capital Investment Scheme proposed for the 2023-27 CAP will support improved animal welfare, and hence reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance, by providing grant aid for investments such as new animal housing, and for upgrading existing pig and poultry houses. New or upgraded pig and poultry feeding systems, allowing for targeted provision of medicated feed or water, will also be grant-aided.
Better feeding systems will avoid unnecessary treatment of all animals in a house, thereby reducing the risk of antimicrobial resistance.
Animal facilities will be grant-aided to assist safe and easy handling and treatment of animals, allowing increased vaccination and preventative treatment, and thereby reducing the need for antimicrobial treatment.
European Innovation Partnerships in the new CAP will target innovative ways of improving animal health and welfare issues, in areas such as rearing pigs with intact tails.
