22 April 2025

Payment rates of €75/calf available under 2025 Beef Welfare Scheme

Details of the 2025 Beef Welfare Scheme, which will open to applications in early August, were made public by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, TD, today April 22.

A scheme comprising of three actions – one mandatory and two optional – farmers whose application is successful and met all three actions can claim the maximum payment rate of €75 per eligible calf. This scheme will also pay up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves per participant, bringing the total payment available to €3,375, where all three actions are completed.

Commenting on the scheme with a total budget of €28 million and a follow-on measure from the scheme implemented in 2024, Minister Heydon said: “This year’s enhanced scheme retains the same measures from last year, but I have increased the overall budget by 40% and lifted the cap on eligible calves from 40 to 45 head. I have also introduced some additional options.”

“As a result, the maximum payment that a farmer can receive will rise from €2,000 to €3,375 for correctly completing three scheme actions. That’s an increase of 69% in the total maximum payable,” Minister Heydon added.

Actions

Minister Heydon also outlined the scheme’s actions and eligibility criteria, noting: “As with previous national schemes, eligible calves are those born to eligible suckler cows in the period from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025.

“This year’s scheme will consist of three measures aimed at improving on-farm efficiency: namely a mandatory meal feeding action, an optional vaccination action for weanlings and a third optional action which can either be faecal egg testing or silage testing.”

Once the scheme opens, participants will be able to opt in or out of either or both of the optional actions. Further details of the payment rates available under the 2025 Beef Welfare Scheme are available in table 1 below:

Table 1: Maximum payment available to participants who correctly complete all three actions (Source: DAFM)

Note:  In the event of the scheme being oversubscribed, a reduction in the maximum number of animals eligible for payment may be applied on 1 or more actions.