Future Beef 2026: demonstrating the path to profitable sustainable suckler farming

Martina Harrington Aisling Molloy James Mullane

The Future Beef Programme is Teagasc’s flagship suckler beef demonstration farm network, comprising 22 farms representing typical Irish beef systems across geographical regions, diverse soil types, and contrasting stocking rates.  The programme demonstrates practical, adoptable technologies under three core objectives:

• Profitability
• Environmental sustainability
• Work-life balance

A central principle of the programme is that profitability and sustainability must go hand in hand, achieved by practices that reduce carbon footprint while improving farm performance.

Key measures implemented include:

• Calving heifers at 24 months of age.
• Increasing daily live weight gain to reduce age at slaughter.
• Improving soil fertility to enhance nitrogen use efficiency.
• Incorporating clover to reduce chemical nitrogen use.
• Increasing the use of protected urea.

Profitability

Profitability is central to suckler farming sustainability, supporting family farm income, reinvestment, and generational viability.  Between 2023 and 2025, profitability improved strongly on the Future Beef suckler farms due to better prices and improved technical efficiency:

• Average gross margin increased from €787/hectare (ha) to €1,775/ha (× 2.3).
• Average net margin increased from €86/ha to €975/ha (× 11.3).
• In 2025 average net margin including direct beef payments (SCEP and NBWS) was €1,143/ha.

The programme focuses on increasing output (kg beef live weight or carcass sold), while simultaneously reducing the cost per kg produced. This is achieved by first maximising output per livestock unit (LU), then by optimising stocking rate to suit prevailing grass growth, infrastructure, and labour availability on the farm.

Increasing output

On suckler farms, beef output is driven by three key factors:

• Calves per cow per year.
• Proportion of heifers calving at 24 months of age.
• Calf growth performance pre- and post-weaning, including carcass traits for finishing cattle.

Improving these areas increases kilograms of beef produced per hectare and overall system efficiency.

Calves per cow per year

Achieving one calf per cow per year is fundamental to profitability. This depends on maintaining a herd of fertile, functional cows, supported by a reliable breeding strategy (stock bull or AI), a strong herd health plan, and good cow body condition management.  Future Beef farms achieved an average of 0.94 calves per cow in 2025 compared to 0.92 when they joined the programme and 0.85 nationally.

Heifers calving at 24 months

Calving heifers at 24 months improves profitability and environmental efficiency by reducing unproductive time and lifetime emissions per animal.

This requires careful management at all stages:

• Pre-breeding: The replacement heifer must be at least 60% of mature cow weight.
• Breeding: selecting suitable easy-calving sires.
• Post-calving: preferential treatment to ensure recovery and rebreeding

In 2025, 77% of heifers in the programme calved at 24 months, compared to 69%when they joined the programme and 19% nationally.

Optimising calf performance

Maximising calf performance pre-weaning is driven by both genetics and management.

Genetics

Future Beef farms focus on breeding ‘balanced’ cows with both strong maternal and carcass traits. Target figures for cows within the Replacement Index using the key profit traits include:

• +20 kg carcass weight.
• +8 kg milk.
• Negative daughter calving interval.

Heifers with key profit traits closest to the targets set are selected as replacements to consistently build on the herd averages to ultimately achieve a herd of ‘balanced’ cows.

Heifers that are poor or ‘imbalanced’ on the key profit traits are finished or sold.  Similarly, cows that do not meet the prescribed key profit traits required are bred to high terminal sires.  The target key profit traits for high terminal sires are; carcass weight, +30 kg and carcass conformation score, +2.0 units, scale 1-15.

Management

Herd Health: A comprehensive herd health plan, developed with the farm vet, includes vaccination, parasite monitoring, and targeted dosing.

Weaning: The aim is to minimise stress and maintain performance. Calves are castrated well in advance of weaning, creep grazed, supplemented with concentrates pre-weaning, and vaccinated. This results in maintained performance through weaning and housing, while also improving sale value.

First-winter: Emphasis is given to the management of weanlings over their first winter as on-farm weighing has shown significant differences in animal performance during this period. Weanlings are housed with adequate space, feed, and water. Diets are based on high-quality silage (72%+ dry matter digestibility, DMD) with concentrate supplementation. Target performance is 0.6 kg/day for heifers and steers over winter to avail of compensatory growth during the subsequent grazing season. Young bulls are managed for higher gains and finished efficiently at target carcass weights and grades.

Reducing costs

Minimising costs is key to profitability, and this is mainly achieved by maximising performance from grazed grass, the cheapest feed source.  In 2026, feed costs are estimated at 12 cent/kg dry matter (DM) for grass, 20 cent /kg DM for grass silage, and 41 cent /kg DM for concentrates, so increasing grass use improves margins.  Future Beef farms target >210 grazing days (up to 240 days on drier farms), supported by autumn closing and spring rotation planning as part of their grazing management.

Key grazing targets (April–October) within their rotationally grazed paddock systems include:

• Pre-grazing herbage yield: 1,400–1,600 kg DM/ha.
• Grazing down to a residual of 5–6 cm in ≤ 3 days.
• Rotation length: 21–26 days.

Teagasc research shows that avoiding tight grazing (i.e. post-grazing sward height of ~4 cm) improves animal performance, with cattle grazed to 6 cm gaining 28 kg more live weight over the grazing season compared to those that grazed to 4 cm. Efficient paddock systems and removing surplus grass as bales when pre-grazing yields are above target and farm cover indicates sufficient grass on the farm helps maintain grass quality (digestibility). In 2025, farms produced 9.8 tonnes grass DM/ha.

Environmental sustainability

Future Beef farmers aim to reduce environmental impact while enhancing biodiversity. This is achieved through improved habitat management, including new hedgerows, low-input pastures, riparian zones (Table 1), and participation in the Farming for Water European Innovation Partnership (EIP) programme.  Chemical fertiliser input is reduced by improving nitrogen use efficiency through better soil fertility and incorporating white and red clover. Use of protected urea has increased on the Future Beef farms from 41% of total chemical nitrogen in 2021 to 78% in 2025.

The carbon footprint of Future Beef farms has also reduced from 11.6 to 11.2 kg CO2e / kg live weight as indicated by analysis using AgNav where 16 farms were matched from 2021 to 2025.

Table 1. Actions implemented on Future Beef farms since 2021

Social sustainability

Many suckler farms are now effectively part-time enterprises, and the concern is that the next generation will not stay farming in systems that are overly labour intensive.

The response on Future Beef farms has been practical:

• Defined (‘simplified’) systems with set targets e.g. weanling producer selling 350-400 kg weanling in September.
• Better infrastructure including paddocks and roadways.
• Investment in animal handling facilities (e.g. holding pens, cattle race and crush) including ‘simple’ structures on out blocks of land.
• Use of agricultural contractors for peak work.
• Use of technologies such as calving cameras, automated heat detection and synchronisation.
• Simplified labour practices (e.g. early castration, planned work blocks).

Conclusion

The Future Beef Programme demonstrates that profitable and sustainable suckler farming systems are achievable through improved efficiency, grassland management, and informed decision-making. By focusing on increasing output, reducing costs, enhancing environmental performance, and improving work-life balance, the programme provides a clear and practical roadmap for the future of Irish suckler farming.

Compiled and edited by Mark McGee and Paul Crosson, Teagasc, Grange Animal & Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, and first published in BEEF2026 – Driving Sustainable Performance, additional reading from BEEF2026 is available here.