Beef Welfare Scheme 2025

wel it is well worth doing the silage testing just a stupid way of doing it always get my silage sampled for free in the local co op now I have to pay should have had the option to just submit the results

I was hoping they'd have increased the payment for meal feeding to at least 50/head but either way i would have been buying meal so it is a help

I am going to test my silage anyway as I have found other years the fluke & worm testing didn't really provide any results. Plus our vet is doing that now as part of some initiative to reduce dosing used.

last year was only 50euro so it is up but in fairness with this scheme I don't think they check it I have not heard of anyone ever having an inspection over it. I know some who don't do vax on any of the calves

I've being checked, very easy just to submit receipt to them so was handy enough

The money received by the farmer will have to be diverted to the feed merchants, Vaccine manufacturers, lab testing and forage testing. The farmer has to show proof that he did all of the above, any bit left will be taxed as profit.

Terms & conditions attached

https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/BeefWelfareScheme2025TermsandConditions120825.pdf

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-api/agriculturalpriceindicesjune2025/

• In the 12 months to June 2025, the Agricultural Output Price Index increased by 18.9% while the Agricultural Input Price Index rose slightly by 0.6%.

This doesn't sound like a sector that need subsidies.

Selling prices up 19% in a year, input costs up 0.6%.

the subsidies are dying out, between inflation leaving them barely worthwhile and the various hoops that need to be jumped through so that an post, the labs, the advisors and researchers, the consultants the co ops, feed merchants and any other person they can get to pull a turn out of it, has nearly all the money gone before anything lands. Then they can use it as a stick to beat you with when you don’t follow their rules.

It’s fairly clear most subs are going to be withdrawn and Agri prices are highly likely being inflated so that there won’t be as much backlash.
I can also see it being a perfect time to cause a divide on the price of food between farmer and the general public and creating an ideal opportunity to justify bringing in cheap meat from Brazil.

At the end of the day most farmers aren’t going to get rich of a year or two of high beef prices and a lot will be happy to get their accounts back to above zero.

Sorry for the rant.

Farmlab are charging €50 for the silage kit and €55 for the faecal kits on their website.

It might also be a point that those that have to buy back in animals will have to pay those high prices as well..I'm looking at easily 2.5x the replacement cost this autumn (probably 3x) for a product that might be worth less in 18/24 months time then what I paid for it if I want to stay on the merry go round

Geuze I'd accept no subsidies if the if you could backdate it before all the interference in the market that depressed the price of agricultural produce for decades to below cost of production

And if there was some sort of body with teeth that could regulate the sectors that seem to always have their margin protected while the producer working away in the shite takes what they can get when it comes to margin

Did you click on the 3 dots on the right hand side.

I can get two free dung samples done through my vets.its some scheme I'm signed into.i wonder would that do for this scheme