More than 14,000 suckler farms and 142,000 suckler cows will be lost from Ireland’s beef industry in the next 10 years unless something is done, a leading academic has warned.

Ireland’s suckler herd is worth at least €2.9bn to the economy and accounts for the equivalent of 52,000 full-time jobs, UCD’s professor of agriculture and food economics Michael Wallace has calculated.

But it faces the loss of 1,400 farms and more than 14,000 cows every year unless a strategy to protect it is put in place.

“The suckler herd is a critical part of the agricultural industry in Ireland but it’s suffering a silent decline,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal ahead of the Beef Summit in Ballinasloe on Thursday night.

“If any other industry faced the same rate of decline and the potential loss of jobs, particularly in disadvantaged areas, there would be people jumping up and down about it,” said Prof Wallace.

In counties Galway, Mayo and Roscommon alone, sucklers are worth €700m and 12,400 jobs, his analysis shows, while they are worth €450m and 7,800 jobs in the midlands.

Sucklers in Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan and Monaghan generate €445m in direct and indirect economic output and 8,600 jobs.

Even the more dairy-dominated eastern and southern counties rely on sucklers for €835m and 15,600 jobs.

Prof Wallace said agri-environmental supports for extensive suckler beef and a targeted headage payment for high-quality beef genetics could be among the solutions to avert the decline facing the suckler herd.

Suckler herd worth €2.9bn and 52,000 jobs - UCD

14,000 suckler farms at risk

A leading UCD academic has called for a cohesive strategy to save an industry that he says is worth almost €3bn to the economy.