Mr. Nevan McKiernan:

Senator Mulherin asked how we could improve. Everyone gives out about the scheme but very few people come up with proposals to try to improve the situation. I agree fully with that. As has been said previously, the animal welfare scheme was an excellent scheme that worked for suckler farmers. It took into account the concerns of different organisations that were discussing animal welfare and beef production. The farmers were happy and the scheme rewarded them for it. In respect of introducing a grant for putting weighing scales on farms and making farmers weigh a percentage of their cattle on the farm every year, there is one way we will drive the milk figure, which is the most important figure in a suckler herd but is being totally disregarded. We have no back up on our milk figures because we have no weaning weights going into the system. I think the ICBF would agree with that. We have few weaning weights so how can we drive our milk figures and indexes? It makes up a massive part of the replacement index yet we have no figures going in on that.

Less than 30% of the pedigree herds record any weaning weights on them at all. Genotype are a certain percentage, genomics is a way forward and has to be used, but they are not linked and indexed to a scheme. The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF does a lot of good work recording data calving intervals. We need to collect all of that data and use the index as a guide.

If the BDGP maternal scheme is working, I would like the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF to be asked about the improvement in the calving interval and how many days it has improved by in the past two to three years since the scheme was introduced. Fertility is a massive part of the replacement index.