I welcome the changes announced by An Bord Bia in the terms and conditions for the Beef and Lamb Assurance Scheme for farmers. Under the new scheme there will be a ‘close out period’ during which farmers will have a month to rectify non-compliances which have been detected at audit and it will not affect their certification status.This change should give farmers time to address minor issues without affecting their ability to claim the Quality Assurance bonus when selling animals in the month after the audit has taken place.
I welcome these changes but it underlines just how slow the wheels of administration work. I raised this matter several months ago at the Agriculture Committee and I asked why the Dairy sector had these concessions and the Beef and Sheep sectors did not. Finally the powers that be have seen sense on this issue and not before time.
