1,300 sought for new CAFRE farm groups

Farmers have until 12 noon on Friday 2 May 2025 to apply to take part in new Business Sustainability Groups (BSGs) run by CAFRE.

The new groups replace the previous Business Development Group (BDG) format, which first opened in 2016 and finished at the end of March 2024.

In the first year of the new scheme, the target is to recruit up to 1,300 applicants. The plan is that each group will last at least four years, with farmers brought together by sector and encouraged to share information and ideas at five on-farm meetings per year.

There are a number of subtle changes when compared to BDG’s.

Firstly there is a slightly greater financial incentive, with £786 available for hosting a meeting and an annual learner support allowance of £445 for group members to collect and share farm performance data.

To get the £445 payment, participants must also attend at least three of the five annual meetings.

In addition, if the new BSGs are over-subscribed in the first year, there will be points based selection criteria used, heavily weighted to farm size (up to 15 points), followed by age of applicant (under 40 gets 1 point) and gender (female gets 1 point).

By focusing on farm size, it does address a weakness in the previous BDG format, where there were farms of vastly different scale put together in the same group.

However, it also potentially means that the new BSGs will be skewed towards certain sectors, especially dairy. Recent farm census results show that there are just under 3,000 farms in NI classed as medium sized or above, with nearly 60% of these farms being dairy operations.

Whether there is much of an appetite for new BSGs among larger farmers remains to be seen and there is probably a level of apathy among farmers who participated in the previous BDG format.

At the same time, the new BSGs provide young farmers in particular, with an opportunity to interact with others, gain knowledge and be exposed to new ideas.

It is an opportunity that should not be missed.