The much talked about dairy retirement scheme has been changed into a cow reduction scheme, the latest draft report from the Dairy Vision Group shows.
The industry group chaired by former Teagasc director Gerry Boyle last week published its interim report that will be sent to the Minister for Agriculture. The 51-page report provides an update ?for the work of the group to date and sets out a preliminary list of 17 recommended actions for the dairy sector.
It states these recommendations are preliminary in the sense that the group recognises that in many cases further work will be required to flesh out the measures.
Some of the more significant measures included are to:
1 Consider the implementation of a voluntary cow reduction scheme.
2 Explore the potential of a cap-and-trade emissions model for methane – essentially this is the establishment and trading of environmental rights between farms.
3 Reduce chemical nitrogen use in the dairy sector by 30% in the short term (2025), with a 35% reduction target in the medium term (2030).
4 Explore the possibility of measuring and monitoring carbon production at individual farm level.
5 Target a 100% replacement rate of CAN with protected urea by the end of 2025 for grass-based dairy production systems.
Cow reduction scheme
Some of the details of the deintensification scheme are contained within the report.
This cow reduction scheme has evolved from the earlier drafts of the report that had a full retirement scheme proposed rather than a reduction scheme.
One of the conditions of the farm retirement scheme was no breeding ruminants would be allowed on the land under the retirement contract.
Farmers who signed up to a cow reduction contract would get a payment per cow for a contract period. It would be open to farmers under such a scheme to reduce completely or partially their cow numbers in return for an appropriate incentive. No funding source or payment per cow figure is mentioned in the draft report. The farmer could not calve any cows and register births on AIM where they had opted to completely reduce. Where they had opted for a partial reduction, they could not calve any more cows than they needed taking into account the reduction contract. The benefit would be a reduction in cows translating into a direct emissions impact.
The much talked about dairy retirement scheme has been changed into a cow reduction scheme, the latest draft report from the Dairy Vision Group shows.
The industry group chaired by former Teagasc director Gerry Boyle last week published its interim report that will be sent to the Minister for Agriculture. The 51-page report provides an update ?for the work of the group to date and sets out a preliminary list of 17 recommended actions for the dairy sector.
It states these recommendations are preliminary in the sense that the group recognises that in many cases further work will be required to flesh out the measures.
Some of the more significant measures included are to:
1 Consider the implementation of a voluntary cow reduction scheme.
2 Explore the potential of a cap-and-trade emissions model for methane – essentially this is the establishment and trading of environmental rights between farms.
3 Reduce chemical nitrogen use in the dairy sector by 30% in the short term (2025), with a 35% reduction target in the medium term (2030).
4 Explore the possibility of measuring and monitoring carbon production at individual farm level.
5 Target a 100% replacement rate of CAN with protected urea by the end of 2025 for grass-based dairy production systems.
Cow reduction scheme
Some of the details of the deintensification scheme are contained within the report.
This cow reduction scheme has evolved from the earlier drafts of the report that had a full retirement scheme proposed rather than a reduction scheme.
One of the conditions of the farm retirement scheme was no breeding ruminants would be allowed on the land under the retirement contract.
Farmers who signed up to a cow reduction contract would get a payment per cow for a contract period. It would be open to farmers under such a scheme to reduce completely or partially their cow numbers in return for an appropriate incentive. No funding source or payment per cow figure is mentioned in the draft report. The farmer could not calve any cows and register births on AIM where they had opted to completely reduce. Where they had opted for a partial reduction, they could not calve any more cows than they needed taking into account the reduction contract. The benefit would be a reduction in cows translating into a direct emissions impact. 
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