Farmers participating in the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) have been granted a reprieve on hitting the 50% four- and five-star female requirement as part of the scheme.
Under the original terms and conditions of SCEP, participating farmers had to have 50% of the reference number of females in their herd genotyped four- or five-star on 31 October 2023.
Farmers will now have until Friday 24 November to hit the 50% target.
Delays
The extension is due to long delays getting genotype results back from Weatherbys DNA laboratory.
The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) put the multi-million genotyping contract out to tender earlier this year, but due to a number of delays in the process the contract wasn’t finalised until late summer.
It was hoped that lab processing of samples could have been ramped up in recent weeks to get all samples back to farmers, but this hasn’t happened as quickly as first hoped.
Samples
Some farmers have samples that were submitted two months ago, with no results back yet.
These farmers have been left in a difficult position as to whether they will meet the 31 October deadline, with no way of knowing what number of genotyped four- and five-star animals are in their herd at the moment.
Due to these delays, the Department of Agriculture has agreed to move the date to the new deadline of 24 November.
Important points
Below is an example of a farmer situation that can avail of the new 24 November date.
Using an example of a herd with a reference number of 20. They need 10 genotyped four- or five-star females on 31 October. The herd was not in the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP), so has no animals which are already genotyped.
There are 11 females that look like they will meet the requirement once they get a genomic evaluation. The genomic evaluations aren’t published until Friday 10 November and two of the animals drop down to three-star.
The farmer now only has nine eligible females. Without the extension, the farmer couldn’t do anything, as the animals were not in the herd on 31 October.
They now have a chance to go out and buy one genotyped four- or five-star female and provided they have the 10 animals in the herd on 24 November, they will be compliant with the scheme.