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The Department of Agriculture has updated nitrates production figures under the Beef Exceptional Aid Measure (BEAM) for the month of February.
The figures are available now on the Department’s agfood.ie facility under the exceptional aid measure portal.
The BEAM figure now details an accurate estimate of the volume of organic nitrogen produced on the holding from 1 July 2020 to 28 February 2021.
The portal also details the remaining bovine nitrates allocation available for the period 1 March 2021 to 30 June 2021.
There is also a figure available for the projected bovine nitrates produced for the period 1 March 2021 to 30 June 2021.
Herd profile
It is critical to note that this figure is based on the herd profile on 1 March 2021.
It takes account of animals in the herd on 1 March 2021 subsequently moving into older age brackets during the period 1 March 2021 to 30 June 2021.
However, it does not account for animals purchased into the herd, leaving the herd or birth registrations after 1 March.
This needs to be calculated manually and, depending on the farming enterprise, can have a big bearing on satisfying the 5% reduction target on 30 June 2021.
An explanation on accessing the BEAM portal and in particular how to defer the reduction year from the original of 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021 to the alternate period of 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2021 can be read here.
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