Ireland should first hold its suckler cow numbers and then encourage a controlled rise in the national herd, argues Agriland columnist Richard Halleron in a signed opinion piece. The views are the writer's own.

Halleron writes that the Beef Welfare Scheme, introduced under former agriculture minister Charlie McConalogue, was one of that tenure's most enlightened decisions: its requirement to meal-feed suckler calves before and after weaning, and the option to vaccinate, ended the practice of taking calves straight from their mothers to the sale yard and, he says, made pneumonia in bought-in weanlings almost insignificant.

He accepts that Teagasc's promotion of dairy-bred beef makes sense up to a point, but argues that the quality beef Irish processors need will only come from suckler-bred animals. The market may help, he writes, but government must play its part, justified also by the conservation value suckler cows bring to the land they graze.

Photo: Rude Health / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Source: Agriland