Thousands of young farmers will be in in the Riverside Hotel, Macroom, Co Cork, this Saturday for the Macra na Feirme annual conference, aka The Rally.

Three Cork clubs are in the running to scoop this year’s prestigious Macra AIB Club of the Year title.

The estimate of 550,000 calves benefiting from the new Beef Genomics Scheme (BGS) is based on experience of the average take-up by farmers of similar schemes, such as the suckler-cow welfare scheme.