The Climate Change Advisory Council has recommended that beef farmers should be guaranteed full direct payments in exchange for reducing cattle numbers in the next CAP.
It suggests that an “extensification” process to reduce cattle numbers could be encouraged by linking CAP payments to stocking limits or limits to nitrogen fertiliser application per hectare.
Payments could also be taken from “more intensive producers to top the payments for farmers who agreed to extensification if the Government wished to do this”, it suggested.
Maintaining direct payments would help to sustain rural communities reliant on beef farming, while improving biodiversity, water quality and lowering ammonia emissions, it said.
The council said it believed a reduction in the national herd size could also have a positive effect on beef prices.
“The majority of beef enterprises are currently economically unviable,” the report stated.
“A reduction in beef supply would also likely lead to higher prices for the remaining cattle and for other beef farmers.”
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The Climate Change Advisory Council has recommended that beef farmers should be guaranteed full direct payments in exchange for reducing cattle numbers in the next CAP.
It suggests that an “extensification” process to reduce cattle numbers could be encouraged by linking CAP payments to stocking limits or limits to nitrogen fertiliser application per hectare.
Payments could also be taken from “more intensive producers to top the payments for farmers who agreed to extensification if the Government wished to do this”, it suggested.
Maintaining direct payments would help to sustain rural communities reliant on beef farming, while improving biodiversity, water quality and lowering ammonia emissions, it said.
The council said it believed a reduction in the national herd size could also have a positive effect on beef prices.
“The majority of beef enterprises are currently economically unviable,” the report stated.
“A reduction in beef supply would also likely lead to higher prices for the remaining cattle and for other beef farmers.”
Read more
No joy in skin and hide trade
Mart prices: thriving cattle softening the brunt of market volatility
Listen: large-scale suckler cull recommended by climate report
Farm organisations slam suckler reduction
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