BEEF farmers who fail to heed warning letters regarding their participation in the Beef Efficiency Scheme could be hit in the pocket.

The warning was issued by rural secretary Fergus Ewing as The Scottish Farmer went to press on Wednesday. But he also accepted that the scheme had its problems – a realistic approach that the ScotGov statement built upon by including a case study highlighting the mixed experience of an East Lothian beef producer.

Said Mr Ewing: “I want to be clear that there are no immediate penalties for having missed the June 15 deadline, but if applicants fail to meet the deadline in their warning letters unfortunately penalties will have to be applied. This could results in a reduction in your BES payment for the 2017 scheme year and I strongly urge all applicants to act quickly should they receive a letter to avoid any reduction in payments.

“I am aware that some scheme applicants have had difficulty in completing the data capture process but there is help and guidance available on our website. European Commission regulations state that support claimed shall be refused or withdrawn in full or part where commitments or obligations are not met. The Scottish Government must adhere to these regulations.”

The case study looked at BES applicants, father and son Angus and Niall Jeffrey from Bielgrange farm, near Dunbar. Mr Jeffrey said: “We decided to apply for the scheme as we currently do a lot of recording anyway, so being given financial support to record and submit the data certainly seemed worthwhile.

“However the payment would have been better over five years not three and it has to be at the current annual rate to be worthwhile, and the information received about the scheme wasn't very well published," he said. “We found the database easy to use, but inputting data from the diary was slow and tedious in the first year, however the second year didn't seem so bad since we tried to update it every two to three days. We did find the video helpful, but weren’t aware of it until it was highlighted at an NFUS meeting.

“There were another couple of aspects of the system that were either too complicated or poorly thought out," he continued. "The assessment of cow docility is too complicated. In addition, the disposal section is poorly thought out. We assumed it was for calves born and subsequently died but discovered it was for all moves off. There is a total lack of reasons for movement off the holding. For example – genuine sales, transfer of stock bull, sales for breeding, sales for slaughter.

“However, through the collection of the data we have picked up on one family line of females being aggressive that we had missed previously," conceded Mr Jeffrey. "If the scheme runs indefinitely in the future and the gene mapping starts to find trends in breeding lines, then it would be advantageous to pick replacement genetics based on production attributes such as feed conversion efficiency or health attributes like Johne's resistance/ hardiness.

“But we are a long way away from this and as soon as the progeny testing stops at the end of the five year scheme, the data will instantly be obsolete," he warned.

“I think the bigger picture of the Scottish beef industry on the world stage will benefit more than individual farm businesses, but that should be relevant to all beef farms in Scotland, because if we don't keep improving genetics we will fall behind the rest of the world," he concluded.