CAP & coupled payments

The first 25 cows isn’t the small lad.
It’s the average.

The Department’s own SCEP figures put the average reference herd at 25 suckler cows — so a payment on the first 25 covers nearly the whole national herd, not the margins of it.

By Brendan Kennedy  ·  Working farmer, Co. Tipperary  ·  20 July 2026

There is an argument doing the rounds that a coupled payment on the first 25 suckler cows is a token gesture. Something for the small lad. Well-meaning, but not serious policy. Here is the number that ends that argument.

The Department of Agriculture’s own figures put the average SCEP reference herd at 25 suckler cows. That is the average across the scheme — not the floor, not the smallest tier. The middle of the herd.

Twenty-five isn’t the small lad. Twenty-five is the average Irish suckler farmer.

Why that changes the argument

If the average reference is 25 cows, then a payment weighted on the first 25 is not a floor under the smallest operators. It is a floor under nearly the entire national suckler herd. It puts the money where the cows actually are, rather than where the acres are.

That lines up with what the herd-size data has been saying for years. Of roughly 55,000 suckler herds in Ireland, over 44,000 run 25 cows or fewer. Herds over 200 cows number in the dozens. In suckling, the big lads barely exist — so a scheme built around the first 25 cows is a scheme built around the sector as it actually is.

What a per-cow payment does that an area payment doesn’t

• It follows the animal. Decoupled support lands in the account whether you keep a hundred cows or none. Coupled support only draws if the cow is on the ground.
• It is harder to claw back at the quote. Money attached to the animal is not the same as money attached to the land the animal walks on.
• It doesn’t get capitalised into land prices the way an area payment does over time.
• It is aimed at the cohort that is shrinking. The suckler herd has gone from about 1.1 million cows in 2013 to under 800,000, falling roughly 5% a year.

The framing problem

The reason the proposal keeps getting described as small is that describing it as small is the easiest way to bury it. Say “first 25 cows” and most people picture a hobby herd, and the debate is over before it starts. Put the Department’s own average beside it and the picture changes completely.

We have had a decade of policy telling suckler farmers to be more efficient, and then paying them for owning ground. Cow numbers went one direction. It is not hard to guess which.

Where it still falls short

Be clear-eyed about it. Even a well-designed coupled payment treats the symptom — fewer cows — while the disease is the price. On the average suckler farm, direct payments already come to roughly 156% of farm income. The farming itself lost money and the payment more than covered the loss. Support can keep cows on the ground. It cannot make the farming pay. Only a fair farm-gate price does that.

Which is why the number matters going into the post-2027 CAP negotiations. Ireland holds the Presidency of the EU Council for the second half of 2026, so we are in the chair while the shape of the next scheme gets decided. Know the number before you go into that conversation. 25 is the average, not the exception.