BEEP scheme for small farmers
Senator Leyden attacked the beef environmental efficiency pilot scheme as impractical and unfair to small farmers. Buttimer and Wilson interjected, and Leyden argued it favoured large ranchers and offered little benefit.
Will the Leader invite the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed, to come to the Seanad as soon as possible to debate a new pilot scheme? The closing date for the receipt of applications under the beef environmental efficiency pilot scheme for farmers with a single suckler cow, known as BEEP, was last Friday, 22 February. Given that it had opened on 4 February, it is a very restricted pilot scheme. A farmer has to weigh his or her single suckler cow and calf.
There is a grant of €40 per cow, less the cost of hiring the scales, not to mention getting the cow onto them. Cows are large animals, weighing between 600 and 800 kg, and weighing them is very difficult and quite dangerous from a health and safety point of view. Under the scheme, it is not very rewarding. A significant number of farmers are saying the scheme is bull and that they are going to bin it because it does not reflect the crisis faced by suckler cow farmers in terms of the cost of production. Fianna Fáil has proposed a €200 per animal single suckler cow payment under a scheme with no red tape. The Government will have to respond on the issue because every time Fine Gael is in power, it introduces really elaborate schemes which ensure farmers do not receive a fair return. It can be proved that the best Ministers and agricultural schemes have been introduced by the Fianna Fáil Party-----
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-----because we do not represent the big ranchers down south and elsewhere. Small farmers in the west and the north west are at a major disadvantage.
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Fianna Fáil must have had a bad weekend.
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The scheme looks to be a disaster. From a health and safety point of view, we cannot ask farmers who are living alone to try to get their big cows onto scales to weigh them for less than €40. What is the benefit? There is no benefit whatsoever. Somebody in the Department came up with this hare-brained scheme to try to ensure only a limited number of farmers would be able to avail of it at a time of crisis. Farmers in the United Kingdom with a single suckler cow are getting a higher price than Irish farmers. As they are getting approximately €180 more, we need a €200 suckler cow payment under a scheme with no red tape. I ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to come to the House to discuss the issue.