The Ulster Farmers’ Union is disappointed that DAERA has decided to delay the Suckler Cow Scheme without consultation and it will disrupt farmers’ yearly calendar. Minister Muir made the announcement yesterday (Wednesday 4 December), stating that the scheme will be delayed until 1 April 2025. It was due to start on 1 January next year.
UFU deputy president Glenn Cuddy said, “For years we were told by DAERA that the Suckler Cow Scheme was due to start on 1 January 2025. Online information provided by the Department reiterated this message to farmers which was misleading. Now we have been told the scheme has been delayed to April. The UFU should have been consulted on this issue as we are part of the APSG co-design. Instead Minister Muir took the decision upon himself and the UFU is totally against it.”
DAERA have stated that the delayed date of 1 April 2025, will allow time for communications that will prepare farm businesses to fully avail of the scheme. However, this will not suit those who are spring calving.
“Minister Muir has said that delaying the scheme to 1 April 2025 will create ‘small changes’. He has not consulted with farmers on this so how can he be so sure? Especially when those early months in the year are one of the busiest periods on farm with spring calving. Farmers won’t have time to engage with DAERA and attend meetings to learn more about the scheme and the targets that have been set.
“DAERA also said one of the reasons for the delay was due to the budget, but they’ve had years since the previous Minister proposed it to get the scheme ready for legislation. DAERA’s inability to stick to the original timeline for the Suckler Cow Scheme is going to seriously disrupt farmers’ yearly calendar. In a spring calving herd, any cows calving in January – March will be excluded to 2026 and any cows calving from April onwards will be in year one. That means any cattle calving from April onward, will need to be calving down 415 days from their last calving date. Then in January – March 2026, these cows will need to calf down in 415 days from their last calving date, but the cows in the same block in 2026 from April onwards will need to calf down in 405 days. It’s complicated enough for farmers to keep track of calving intervals going forward never mind spring calving herds being split in the middle.”
Over the past year, the UFU has been extremely vocal to DAERA regarding their lack of communication on the Suckler Cow Scheme to farmers. Yet, little to nothing was done to update on the process.
“At this late stage, the best outcome now for farmers is for DAERA to postpone the scheme until 1 January 2026 and we strongly advise them to do so. DAERA continuously say new schemes will be farmer friendly but commencing a scheme from April with challenging targets does not make this easy for farmers. It does the very opposite. The Suckler Cow Scheme needs to be based on the calendar year in the same way as the Beef Carbon Scheme. By pushing the roll out of the Suckler Cow Scheme to 2026, DAERA has an abundance of time to improve their communications with farmers on the scheme at a more suitable time of the year and CAFRE can organise workshops in 2025 to advise farmers on the scheme and how to achieve the targets,” said Mr Cuddy.
