Collins calls for ICBF beef index reclassification to be suspended

WEST Cork TD Michael Collins has called on the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) to suspend its recent reclassification of beef indices that will impact all Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) participants.

Deputy Collins was speaking in the wake of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine meeting on the reclassification, where ICBF chairman Michael Doran and chief executive Sean Coughlan came before the committee.

SCEP provides financial support to beef farmers to improve the environmental sustainability of the national beef herd. Committee member Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice said changes to the beef indices will have ‘dire consequences for the people who have signed up to SCEP if the figures have gone wrong on their farm’.

ICBF chief executive Sean Coughlan acknowledge it will ‘cause challenges’. But Deputy Collins went further. ‘It is clear to me that the ICBF has no conception of the anguish that this issue has generated for farmers. It has effectively wiped out at least 40% of some farmers income overnight.

‘The ICBF have lost the dressing room on this, and it has lost the confidence of virtually all political representatives for the hamfisted way in which it derived and communicated the re-classification. I am hearing from farmers that their best cows have been devalued from five and four star breed scores to one star. How can the ICBF fail to see that this is going to massively impact profits and income?

‘It is my understanding that the Simmental breed society have highlighted a number of flaws in the index that require urgent auditing. I also understand that it has asked that the index which was in place prior to November 28th 2023 be re-instated until full clarification is received. I fully support this call.

'The ICBF want us to believe this is all just bad communication and "scare-mongering." That is grossly offensive, and it treats cattle breeders as fools who cannot assess the damage being created by this move.

‘I want this re-classification suspended until an independent review of its impact can be obtained and the sooner this happens the better,’ concluded Deputy Collins.

During the committee meeting, ICBF chief executive Sean Coughlan said that the idea of suspending reclassification would leave the industry in a ‘vacuum’.

‘The reality is that either the indexes are published or they are not. Bad and all as it is now, it would create an even bigger vacuum of information if people do not know whether the indexes are going to be published or not. Then we would face into a breeding season next spring where people are buying or selling animals or making breeding decisions and they are operating in a vacuum.’

The issue of beef indices has been simmering over the past two months. The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association met with ICBF officials in November and earlier this month had called for the SCEP scheme to be addressed, saying farmers had grave concerns.

ICSA president Dermot Kelleher said ICBF have gone too far with their changes to the beef breeding indexes regarding pedigree bulls.

‘ICSA met with ICBF back in early November where we were reassured that no drastic changes would be made; this has turned out to be far from the case however. The changes are proving to have considerable ramifications for farmers participating in the SCEP scheme and indeed for the future of the suckler sector as a whole,’ said Mr Kelleher.

‘The majority of suckler farmers want to breed a good stylish calf that will sell well in the mart or is fit to export. The problem now is that any AI sire that will do just that has been hammered, and therefore deemed unsuitable for use in the SCEP scheme. The SCEP is an important source of income for suckler farmers, but these changes will do nothing to keep farmers in the scheme.’