merrion street

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine, Michael Creed today announced that he has extended the deadline for BDGP farmers to complete their 2016 carbon navigators. Minister Creed acknowledged the “significant progress made recently by farmers and the advisory services in meeting the end October deadline with 20,000 currently completed”. The Minister added that “due to significant pressures on both farmers and advisors I have extended the deadline to the 30 November”
The requirement to complete a beef carbon navigator comprises a key additional 2016 compliance requirement for all BDGP farmers and he now urged the “remaining farmers that have not completed the navigator to immediately contact their advisor to arrange a meeting to complete same”.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has recently issued further reminders to all BDGP participants instructing them to complete their carbon navigator in order to facilitate both timely payment and the avoidance of penalties and Minster Creed is now happy that this month extension “will provide all participating farmers with the opportunity to ensure compliance with this element of the scheme and thereby facilitate payment later this year”.

Concluding, the Minister stressed that “completing this element of the programme will also ensure that all participating farmers have a better understanding of how to reduce their agricultural emissions per unit of output while at the same time improve their farm efficiency”.

Note to Editors
The carbon navigator is an online farm management package developed by Bord Bia and Teagasc. The navigator quantifies the environmental gains that can be made on each applicant’s farm. It is a very useful and simple tool which allows an individual farmer to look at changes which can be made on their farm in areas such as the length of the grazing season or their average calving rate.

Importantly, it then illustrates what that change would mean in terms of both reduced GHG emissions from the herd and the increased profitability associated with such a change.
ENDS