Thousands of calves will fail to gain support payment under new rules

New figures from SRUC show individual payments could go up as thousands of calves fail the new 410-day calving interval rules which are coming in for the future beef calf scheme. Based on 2023 data if a farmer have less than one in eight calves ineligible they will be better off financially.

Using historic data academics Steven Thomson, Ian Archibald and Mike Coffey show that 13.3% of mainland cows and 12.6% of island cows would fail to meet the 410-day requirement, making their calves unable to receive support cash.

READ MORE | Scotland's beef producers call for clarity on scheme rules

As a result, farmers with ineligible calves will miss out on £100 on the mainland and £150 on islands. However, the money would be retained in the pot, pushing up payments per eligible calf to £121.23 for mainland claims and £173.01 for island claims, based on the payment rate in 2023.

An average mainland claim of 62 calves which all hit calving interval target would achieve a £1,000 uplift in payment. Island herds, which average 34 calves, would see around £740 more. However if a herd was struggling to hit the calving target with 20% of cows losing eligibility then average payments would be cut by between £455 and £470. If the new rule only reduces claims by 13%, the amount of money received by the farm is estimated to remain constant.

The study looked at the calving interval for the Scottish beef herd from 2015 to 2023 where there has been an average improvement of around 10 days per year. In 2023 the national average was 391 days in both the islands and mainland schemes. Some of this recent improvement has been linked to fewer farrow cows being retained during a period of very high cull-cow prices.

A large proportion of 2023 beef calf scheme claimants had less than 20 eligible calves claimed. On the islands, 21% of businesses had one to four eligible calves, and 39% had one to nine eligible calves. On the mainland, 16% of businesses were only claiming one to nine calves. In contrast, on the mainland, 8.8% of businesses had claims of 150 or more calves in 2023, accounting for 35% of the claims.

Chief executive of the National Beef Association Neil Shand said: “This policy was developed to improve the efficiency and performance of the national herd, but now, the government have paid SRUC to show how the cows with calves that don’t qualify , but will still be there will impact the payment rates of those that do qualify. In a period of challenge for suckler cows with record dispersals sales happening this summer the added layer of bureaucracy is neither welcome or required.

“This comes along with the introduction of the scheme rules when the qualifying period had already started. SSBSS was defined as coupled support- to support challenged areas of Agriculture- it now has conditionality within it- this is morally wrong. Can someone define the actual environmental benefit this will achieve , when all it will do is force more cows off in challenged rural communities and the biodiversity benefit of grazing ruminants will be lost forever.”

NFU Scotland’s Livestock and LFA Policy Manager Lisa Hislop said: “It’s useful to have this additional detail on the impact of the new conditionality on the calf scheme. This underlines the importance of our key ask which was to retain the ringfenced delivery of the £40 million budget through this reform.

“The report highlights the efficiency improvements already being made by the industry, notably 86.7% of mainland cows and 87.4% of island cows meeting the 410-day threshold in 2023, demonstrating a 3% and 4.6% increase from 2019 to 2023.

“However, Scottish Government cannot dismiss the fact that total number of claims has steadily dropped over the last nine years, reflecting the decline in the suckler herd. Without support, we will continue to see a decline, which will have a determinantal domino effect through the supply chain and rural communities.

“We continue to underline the importance of schemes such as the Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme and Less favoured Area support continuing, as well as advocating for the recognition and appropriate reward for the public goods delivered by active livestock grazing.

“As part of our work on SSBSS reform, we continue to illustrate the potential unintended consequences of the new conditionality affecting individual eligibility following exceptional circumstances such as a disease outbreak. It is essential that Scottish Government publish the full scheme guidance including the force majeure process.”