An analysis of data by the Irish Farmers Journal suggests DAERA has significantly overestimated the amount of money required to fund new beef schemes.

In the current financial year, 9% was taken off all farm payments. Given an original pot of just over £293m, the 9% cut created a fund of over £26m to cover payments made under the new Beef Carbon Reduction (BCR) scheme.

However, initial figures presented to the Stormont Agriculture committee suggest that the payout in the first year of the BCR scheme will be under £20m, creating a shortfall of around £6m.

That £6m figure is likely to be an underestimate as the first three months of the BCR scheme in 2024 relate to a previous financial year, so payments had to come from the 2023-2024 budget.

It is also important to note that when the 9% cut was applied, it was intended that some of the money would be used to fund a new suckler cow scheme, due to start on 1 January 2025. That scheme has since been put back to 1 April 2025.

Clarify

On enquiry, a DAERA spokesperson was unable to clarify the extent of the underspend, nor what the money might potentially be used for.

“Final application figures to the BCR scheme have yet to be finalised and therefore final spend cannot be confirmed at this stage. This is an annual budget to be spent in-year and DAERA cannot comment further until final spend across all elements of the programme in 2024-2025 is confirmed,” said the spokesperson.

BCR numbers likely to be under 300,000

It is likely that the total number of beef cattle eligible for payments under the Beef Carbon Reduction (BCR) scheme in 2024 will fall well short of the overall cap of 352,000 head.

Under scheme rules, if the cap is breached, DAERA would proportionately reduce the number of cattle that each farm business is able to claim.

However, despite a record kill in 2024, including 391,300 prime cattle, only around 75% of these prime animals have met eligibility requirements around age at slaughter and origin.

Applications

Addressing the Stormont Agriculture committee last Thursday, Dr Rosemary Agnew from DAERA revealed that around 8,200 farm businesses in NI have applied for the BCR scheme.

Approximately 296,000 cattle are eligible for payment in 2024, with the estimated pay-out (in March 2025) totalling around £19.8m.

The main aim of the BCR scheme is to encourage farmers to slaughter cattle at younger ages, thereby reducing carbon emissions from beef cattle.

Targets

“We hit very close to our targets in the first year so we’re seeing a reduction in the emissions from cattle,” said Agnew. With the age limit now 28 months, dropping to 27 and 26 months in the next two years, those emissions should fall further, she added.

She acknowledged that some farmers criticise the scheme for incentivising them to feed more concentrate.

However, she pointed out that if farmers don’t cut emissions by lowering slaughter ages, the alternative, as suggested by the Climate Change Committee (CCC), is cuts to livestock numbers in NI.