Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue said this week that all suckler farmers can apply for the scheme where they have calves born between July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024. “This means they are fully eligible to draw down both the €35 for meal feeding and the €15 for the vaccination measure once they have carried out the actions. Keeping the scheme to just two measures means that it is as efficient as it possibly can be for all participants,” said Minister McConalogue
In the small number of cases where calves born last autumn have now been sold on as weanlings, farmers remain fully eligible for the scheme and can apply for payment for both actions where both were completed before the weanlings were sold. In the cases where calves were not vaccinated, they will not qualify for the €15 but the farmer remains eligible for the meal feeding payment which makes up €35 of the €50 payment per animal.
The minister said: “This follows the same pattern as previous schemes including last year’s Beef Welfare Scheme. Where the scheme does differ however is that I have made an adjustment so that there is no penalty applied to the meal feeding in the event of a farmer not applying for the second measure’.”