Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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216. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will address concerns relating to the mandatory six contract requirement which is part of the new beef data and genomics programme; his views on concerns surrounding the complexity of the programme; the efforts his Department is making to effectively communicate the benefits of it; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19689/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Government has made a provision of €52m for the BDGP in 2015. It forms part of the country’s draft Rural Development Programme and will have a budget of approximately €300m over a period of 6 years. The BDGP will accelerate improvement in the crucial area of environmental sustainability in the national herd through the application of genomic technology and will bring about long-term strategic improvements to the sector by fundamentally improving the genetic quality of the beef herd. It will also position Ireland as a global leader in the application of genomics technology and confirm our reputation as one of the most important and renowned export focussed beef producing nations in the world.

Participants in the programme will receive a payment of €142.50 per hectare for the first 6.66 payable hectares under the scheme, and €120 per payable hectare after that. Payment to scheme participants is on the basis of costs incurred and income foregone for each of the actions undertaken. All of the costs to the farmer, including in terms of time and effort, have been factored into the payment for the farmer as agreed with the European Commission. The payment includes a cost associated with the tissue tag sample and subsequent processing, and this will be deducted at source from the farmer’s payment.

The BDGP builds on the schemes operated by my Department in recent years and all of the actions will already be familiar to most farmers entering the scheme, including the data recording elements and the genotyping requirements. There has been some concern regarding the requirement to join the scheme for a 6 year period. This multi-annual approach is required for all EU funded agri-environmental schemes and, in any event, should facilitate long term planning on individual farms. We have also included force majeure clauses in the Terms and Conditions to deal with situations where a farmer has to withdraw from the programme due to circumstances beyond his or her control.

The replacement strategy is the other main new element of the BDGP. The need for genetic improvement in the Irish suckler herd is widely acknowledged, and the adoption of genomic technology is a critically important tool in increasing production efficiency and ultimately farmer margins. This scheme is putting €300 million into accelerating genetic improvement and so the requirement for farmers to move towards using 4 and 5 star rated stock bulls and heifers is essential to its objectives. I am fully aware that these requirements will take time which is why there is a 5 year lead-in time.

Finally, I would like to add that both my Department and the ICBF have published Questions and Answers documents to address queries being raised by farmers and these will be updated regularly as other queries arise. I also issued some updated information on the contents of the scheme only yesterday. In addition, farmer’s can consult the Department’s website for more information and I would encourage them to contact the Department’s helpline if they have any further questions.