A farm organisation has called for the suspension of the 5% production reduction requirement under the BEAM scheme.
The IFA has put proposals to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to facilitate this, as a result of restrictions placed on farmers from COVID-19.
Marts
IFA national livestock chairman, Brendan Golden, said as marts are closed and not operating normally, the movement and value of stock are “totally disrupted”.
“It’s not reasonable for the Minister or the EU Commission to insist that farmers who participated in BEAM be forced to reduce their livestock numbers this year commencing from July 1st.”
The farm lobby group said it has put this case to the Department of Agriculture requesting that the Minister would secure the necessary sanction from the Commission in Brussels.
Terms and conditions
The terms and conditions of the BEAM Scheme state that participants must ‘reduce the production on the holding of bovine livestock manure nitrogen by 5% for the period 01 July 2020 to 30 June 2021 as compared with the period 01 July 2018 to 30 June 2019 as recorded on Department systems. Slurry exports are not reckonable as reduction’.
