The report – Exploring the opportunities for expanding Ireland’s forest resource – outlines the physical land resource that is potentially available for afforestation and makes a series of recommendations on how to increase the level of planting.

Lands classified as being limited for agriculture represent 1.8m ha, showing there is “wider scope for afforestation” the report found. These lands have a higher proportion of difficult soils, often economically marginal for agriculture, with forestry presenting a viable alternative land use option.

Fantastic investment opportunity

Minister of State for Forestry Tom Hayes said at the launch of the report on Thursday: “We have secured a Forestry Programme to 2020, which plans to expand forest cover by a further 43,000ha. This package includes attractive grant aid and premium payments to all landowners, over a 15-year period, who afforest a part of their land holding. It is a fantastic investment opportunity and one that has the potential to contribute significantly to landowners’ incomes.”

Incentives may help overcome difficulties identified in the report. “While the returns to forestry are comparable to cattle and sheep systems, farmers seem to be unwilling to afforest for a variety of reasons,” COFORD found. These range from the possibility of draining and reclaiming poor land of dairying to reluctance to lock farmland into long-term forestry.

Tax-free status

Welcoming the forestry report, IFA farm forestry chair Michael Fleming said he “would encourage all farmers to consider forestry as a land use option and familiarise themselves with the available grants and premiums, particularly in light of the changes in the 2016 budget that return the income tax-free status of forestry income”.

With Ireland already struggling to achieve cuts in greenhouse gas emissions due by 2020, these grants and premiums in afforestation will support efforts to have the role of forests in taking carbon out of the atmosphere recognised at EU level.

This could especially compensate emissions from farming, though many environmentalists oppose this option, saying that every sector should play its part regardless of offsets elsewhere.

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