The Irish Farmers Journal understands a new dairy cow and calf scheme is being developed to help improve the health of cows and the quality of calves in the dairy herd.

It is envisaged the scheme will involve dairy farmers signing up to use a certain proportion of sexed semen, which could have a big positve spin-off for the dairy and beef herds.

Industry stakeholders have been tasked with developing such a scheme.

It is understood it will be funded using European money and be similar in structure to the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP). The Irish Farmers Journal has learned that a pot of €15m has been earmarked.

To qualify, farmers will have to undertake to complete a number of measures to attain a premium in the order of €30/cow.

If the available funds are in the region of €15m and the targeted amount per cow is in the region of €30/cow, it means the scheme would reach about 500,000 dairy cows from the 1.35m due to calve this spring.

The move is seen as part of a strategy to move away from a dependence on calf exports and retain more animals of better quality in the national herd. The rise in dairy cow numbers is set to continue and this is part of the efforts to improve the quality of calves coming from the dairy herd.

Herd health

It is understood that measures to improve the health of the dairy herd would also be included and options such as mobility scoring, genotyping, body condition scoring and calf immunity status are also being considered as part of the menu of options farmers would have to complete as part of the scheme.

The Irish Farmers Journal understands that the proposal has not yet been put before the Minister for Agriculture.

There is no definite start date for such a scheme.

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