Deadline extension for beef efficiency scheme

The deadline for farmers to get their Beef Efficiency Scheme data to the Scottish Government has been extended to July 31.

The administrative deadline was due today but it has been moved to allow more time for farmers and crofters to complete their calving data on the ScotEID website.

Scotland’s Farmer’ Union, NFU Scotland, has welcomed the extension to be completed and is encouraging farmers and crofters in sending their completed data.

The objective of the five-year Beef Efficiency Scheme is to assist in the development of suckler herds in Scotland to become more efficient.

The information required by farmers to ensure their application is accurate includes:

• Calf: calf ID, date of birth, sex and the dam ID; sire ID of calf; calving ease; size of calf; calf vigour; creep feeding (if applicable); and calf mortality (if applicable).
• Dam (mother of the calf): Dam docility and culling/death reasons of the dam (if applicable).

The union has said there are a small number of applicants who have had problems with the system, and it has fed this back to Scottish Government. This has included some who were previously unable to record calving data for all calves born from January 1 to June 1, due to issues with holding numbers. ScotEID has confirmed this has now been resolved.