CAP post-2027 · Our submission

We've put our plan for the next CAP on the record.

Coupled payments scaled to quality and front-loaded to the family farm. A grass-finished bonus with residency that means something. A fair deal for the drystock man. And an early retirement package to free up land for the next generation.

Submitted by Brendan Kennedy  ·  Working farmer, Co. Tipperary  ·  July 2026

⬇ Download the full submission (Word) Read Part II — sheep, tillage & dairy Read Part III — the forgotten sectors

Ireland is in the chair for the post-2027 CAP negotiations right now — we hold the EU Presidency until the end of 2026. This is the moment the next scheme gets shaped, so IrelandCattlePrice.com has made a formal submission. Here it is in full.

Purpose

This submission proposes a design for Coupled Income Support in the post-2027 CAP that keeps cattle on the small family farm, drives up the genetic and market quality of the national herd, rewards grass finishing, and treats the drystock finisher fairly alongside the suckler breeder — paired with an early retirement package that frees up land for the next generation. It is offered by a working beef farmer, on behalf of the farmers who report prices to IrelandCattlePrice.com.

The context

• Ireland has roughly 55,000 suckler herds. Over 44,000 of them run 25 cows or fewer. The average herd is 16–20 cows, and only 57 herds nationally hold more than 200 cows.
• The suckler herd has fallen from about 1.1 million cows in 2013 to under 800,000, declining around 5% per year.
• On the average suckler farm, direct payments already equal roughly 156% of farm income (Teagasc National Farm Survey) — the enterprise itself loses money and the payment covers the loss.

Two conclusions follow. First, the suckler sector is the small family farm; support should be built around that, not against it. Second, a flat per-head payment simply pays people to keep loss-making cattle. The design must keep cows on the ground and reward quality.

Proposal 1 — the breeder, paid per suckler cow

A base payment (x) per suckler cow, where x is never flat but scales with genetic and management quality: ICBF star rating, calving interval, gestation length, docility, carcase merit and calf growth rate. Good stock and good breeding earn full rate; poor, hard-calving, low-merit cows earn less. Front-loaded to the family farm: the first 25 cows at double rate, cows 26 to 100 at standard rate, capped at 100.

Because over 44,000 of 55,000 herds sit at 25 cows or fewer, the double rate reaches almost the entire sector, while the cap costs the exchequer very little. A farmer with 20 five-star cows would earn more per head than a 300-cow unit running poor genetics for the cheque.

Proposal 2 — the drystock finisher, paid per animal slaughtered

The finisher buying weanlings and stores keeps no breeding cows, so a per-cow payment never reaches him. He receives a separate coupled payment per animal slaughtered, tied to age at slaughter (the younger the kill, the higher the rate), grade and specification, and the quality of stock finished. The same front-loading and cap apply, so the payment backs the working finisher rather than the largest feedlots. An animal's ability to finish young and to spec is largely set by the breeder — so the two payments pull in the same direction and reward the whole chain from birth to factory.

Proposal 3 — a grass-finished bonus with real residency

Bord Bia already defines grass-fed beef — a diet of at least 90% grass over the animal's lifetime, averaging 220 days per year at grass — but no grass-finished bonus is paid at the factory gate for it. It functions as a marketing standard and PGI, not as income for the farmer. This proposal adds such a bonus, paid on top of Proposals 1 and 2, and ties it to genuine residency: a minimum of 6 to 9 months on the finishing farm, at grass — well beyond the current 60–70 day in-spec requirement, verified through the existing Bord Bia Grass Fed Standard so no new audit regime is required.

The residency requirement and the herd-size cap in Proposal 1 work together to keep support pointed at the family farm; grass alone is not the safeguard. A grass-finished bonus rewards exactly what Ireland markets internationally — grass-reared and grass-finished cattle — and directs public money to the farms delivering it.

Proposal 4 — an early retirement package to free up land

Payments alone cannot renew the sector if the land never moves. Ireland has had no early retirement scheme since the last one closed to new entrants in 2008, and the result is visible on every road in the country: farmers working into their seventies with no dignified way to step back, and young people who want to farm unable to get land.

The Commission's own Generational Renewal Strategy points the same way — it ring-fences at least 6% of agricultural spending for renewal, offers young farmers a starter pack of up to €300,000, and by 2032 would stop farmers drawing a State pension and direct payments at the same time. Ireland should get ahead of that deadline with a scheme farmers actually want to join, rather than a cliff edge they get pushed off. This submission proposes a voluntary early retirement and farm transfer package:

• An annual retirement payment, for a fixed term, to farmers over a qualifying age who transfer their land — by sale, gift, succession or a long-term lease of at least five years — to a trained young farmer or new entrant.
• A dignity clause: the retiring farmer keeps the dwelling house and a paddock, and the payment sits alongside — never against — the State pension.
• A top-up where the herd passes on with the land — so a suckler or beef enterprise keeps going, and Proposals 1 to 3 have a next generation to work for.
• Paired with the EU young farmer starter pack, so the land released and the money to farm it arrive together — an exit for one generation funding an entrance for the next.

Freed land is only a win if it lands with the small man starting out — not the operation that already sees the whole board.

Common qualifier — quality, not paperwork

No payment, breeder or finisher, without a clean Bord Bia Quality Assurance audit and demonstrated engagement with a Teagasc or approved advisor. This ties public money to well-run, improving farms, keeps it away from box-tickers, and lifts the national standard that underpins Ireland's grass-fed brand.

How it's funded — no new money required

The obvious question is where the money comes from. The answer is that most of it is already on the table.

EU rules already allow every member state to put up to 13% of its direct payments into coupled support, plus 2% for protein crops. Ireland's direct payments run to roughly €1.18 billion a year — so about €150 million a year of coupled-payment headroom exists today, under existing rules, without one new euro from Brussels or the exchequer. Ireland uses almost none of it: around €7 million a year on protein aid. France, Poland and most of Europe use their allowance in full. We leave ours sitting.

Add SCEP, which ends with this CAP in any case — €256 million over five years, roughly €51 million a year — and the identified funding comes to about €204 million a year. Costed against the real national herd (some 780,000 suckler cows across 55,000 herds), the front-loaded payment in Proposals 1 and 2, capped at 100 cows, comes to roughly €195–210 million a year. The sums balance — and it is the 100-cow cap that makes them balance, because the money stops flowing to the operations that need it least.

One thing said plainly: money moved into the coupled ceiling comes off the flat per-hectare pot. That is not a flaw in the design — it is the design. A flat payment pays land. This pays cows, quality and the family farm.

As for the retirement package, the Commission's own proposal ring-fences at least 6% of CAP spending for generational renewal — on Ireland's budget, roughly €120 million a year that must be spent on renewal regardless. The money is coming. The only question is whether Ireland spends it on a scheme farmers will actually join. The grass-finished bonus and finisher top-ups sit within the existing eco-scheme envelope (€297 million a year) and national beef schemes as they are redesigned after 2027.

Ireland leaves €150 million a year of coupled-payment headroom unused while telling suckler farmers there's no money. This submission doesn't ask for new money — it asks that what is on the table be spent on the people keeping cows.

The bigger point

Even the best coupled payment treats the symptom (falling cow numbers), not the disease (farm-gate price). Support can keep cows on the ground; only a fair price makes the farming pay. Price transparency and coupled support should be pursued together. That's what this site is for.