The first ICBF stakeholder forum will take place on Thursday, 1 February, from 10am until 1pm. Invitations have been sent to all interested parties this week for the three-hour meeting.

The Irish Farmers Journal understands that former Department of Agriculture official Paul Dillon will chair the meeting. The event will include presentations from Ross Evans, ICBF, and Paul Crossan, Teagasc, on the changes to the indexes and why they came about.

Pedigree breed societies, farm organisations, AI companies, the Agricultural Consultants Association and other stakeholders have all received their invitations for next week’s meeting.

Some participants have expressed their frustration at the lack of time involved to discuss what’s on the agenda, while others have said the meeting should have been made public so any interested party could attend.

Pedigree breed societies have issued ICBF with an ultimatum seeking changes before the meeting, or they won’t participate. The latest update to the ICBF indexes took place on 24 January, with a further six evaluation runs planned for 2024.

Tensions remain high in suckler circles around the November 2023 changes made to the ICBF suckler indexes, which included updated costings and carbon. Many suckler farmers feel the changes were communicated poorly and the ICBF is expected to address a lot of these issues at the stakeholder forum.