Scottish Rural Development Programme 2014-2020: ex-post evaluation - annex A scheme summary report

2. Beef Efficiency Scheme

Scheme description

The Beef Efficiency Scheme (BES) was a five-year climate change scheme that predominantly provided support relating to cattle genetics and management practice to help beef breeders improve the efficiency, sustainability, and quality of their beef herd. The purpose of the support was to help identify animals that were more efficient and therefore produced lower Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.

The BES system was hosted on the ScotEID website.

The BES scheme opened to applications in 2016 and made final co-financed payments to beneficiaries in 2022.

The scheme’s approach, based on active use of whole life data for individual animals, provision of advisory services and action planning by farmers involved:

• the input of data collected by farmers about their animals for the duration of the scheme.
• genotyping a proportion of animals each year to enhance the rate of genetic progress.
• a carbon audit of each farm.
• support for farmers to identify three management improvements on their farm within the five years of the contract.

The BES supported scheme participants to engage with advisory services at various points over the course of their participation to help identify the best management improvements for their farm - parallel with the Farm Advisory Service FAS). This included an advisory services video, a one-to-one consultation, and group events.

Advisory services represented a smaller part of the wider BES scheme and were put in place to increase knowledge and understanding of data collection and reporting and genotype tissue tagging. The advisory services also helped farmers to make more informed management decisions on changes to practice based on the information gathered from the collection of data and genotyping, or from monitoring animal weights and making changes following carbon audits.

Public expenditure

The BES was programmed to contribute to Priority 5 (Promoting resource efficiency and supporting the shift towards a low carbon and climate resilient economy in agriculture, food and forestry sectors), and to FA 5D.

A summary of the public expenditure achieved by the BES is provided in Table 2.1, with final co-financed payments made in 2022.

Source: Scottish Government, Annual Implementation Report 2023.

The BES also contributed to Priority 1 (Fostering knowledge transfer and innovation in agriculture, forestry and rural areas) and to FA 1A (Fostering innovation, cooperation, and the development of the knowledge base in rural areas).

Performance indicators

A summary of the aggregated outcomes achieved by the BES is provided in Table 2.2. Table 2.3 then provides details of annual outcomes where figures cannot be aggregated.

Source: Scottish Government, Annual Implementation Report 2023.

Source: Scottish Government, Annual Implementation Report 2023.

Scheme evaluation

No evaluation was undertaken of the BES. Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) has indicated they may undertake further analysis of data collated and reported by farmers supported through the BES. At the time of ex-post programme evaluation reporting this analysis has not been made available to the SG or to the evaluators. The SG should continue to follow this up and review findings when they are made available.

What worked well and/or less well

Aspects of the BES which worked well included:

• the advice component – very much needed given the nature of the scheme and the activities undertaken.
• the development of a comprehensive genetic database.
• carbon audits provided useful intelligence with resultant action plans – despite there being some initial mistrust among beneficiaries about the value of these audits for their business.

Aspects of the BES which worked less well included:

• while a comprehensive genetic database was developed as part of the BES, the information available to participating farms does not currently provide farmers with anything that would allow them to make use of their genetic data – this output should, however, flow from the further work that SRUC is undertaking.
• the scheme was considered administratively complex and intensive to manage, deliver, and monitor.
• a bespoke IT system was not put in place for the scheme – this resulted in the use of spreadsheets which required significant manual input (this also had the potential to increase error rates).
• some beneficiaries found it difficult to provide the compulsory data, some did not have the necessary equipment at the outset to support data collection (for example, weight crates), and there were wider challenges arising from, for example, tissue and blood sample returns going missing in the post – taken together, these issues impacted on data quality and completeness.
• there was a drop-off in scheme beneficiaries providing the required monitoring data over the whole five-year period within the specified timelines - the payment to beneficiaries was front-loaded rather it was paid in full by year three. This possibly reduced the motivation and incentive for beneficiaries to continue adhering to scheme compulsory data requirements in the final two years of the scheme.

Lessons learned

The following lessons learned were identified for the BES scheme:

• set ambitious but realistic goals.
• it is critical to set and communicate clear expectations and requirements among potential applicants regarding ongoing monitoring and reporting requirements at an early stage – and to make sure these are understood.
• compulsory data requirements that include things like tissue and blood sample returns should be sent recorded delivery by beneficiaries to minimise the risk of these items going missing in the post.
• it is important to clearly communicate processes and procedures in place to scheme beneficiaries should they not adhere to compulsory data collection and reporting requirements (for example, use of penalties).
• a bespoke IT system for the BES could have made it much easier to manage and monitor the scheme – any IT system would need to be tested and fully functional prior to the scheme starting.
• a data sharing protocol could have made it easier for scheme partners to share scheme data in a fair, safe, timely and transparent way.
• an evaluation should have been undertaken of the BES to examine the effectiveness and efficiency of scheme processes, to establish impact, and to identify recommendations for future support.

Current status of the scheme

The BES closed in 2021 and did not transition to the SRDP domestic programme 2021-2024. There is no current successor programme to the BES.