Included in the food harvest report, which outlines how agricultural sectors may meet a target increase in the value of primary output by 2020, is a suggestion that beef production systems need to improve farm competiveness, technology and knowledge transfer. To implement policies that effectively improve these measures on cattle farms, policy makers need to first account for the high level of heterogeneity that exists across these production systems. Hence, we have developed a typology for irish cattle farmers. The typology is created using a latent class cluster model, which groups farmers according to demographic, economic anf farm level criteria. Eight types of cattle producers are identified: dairy farmers, finishing with tillage farmers, bachelor finishers, ederly farmers selling stores, extensive suckler farmers, hobbyist farmers (or those retaining ownership of their holdings), opportunist farmers and on-farm diversifiers.