The IFA has an established Farm Forestry Committee, which represents the interests of farmers who have invested in forestry as well as promoting the contribution that forestry makes to farm family incomes.

The IFA plays a major role in forestry development mainly because it maintains direct contact with its membership, which now stands at 88,000 in 946 branches nationwide. As well as promoting forestry, the IFA’s Farm Forestry Committee has a number of key roles such as identifying issues within the sector, formulating farm forestry policy to deal effectively with issues that arise and providing day-to-day support on forestry.

The IFA also sits on an EU advisory committee, which is made up of key EU Commission officials, representatives of the forest industry, environmental NGOs and farmers who get an opportunity to assess EU policy and make recommendations to the Commission before policy is implemented. For almost 20 years, the IFA has been the sole voice for Irish private forest owners on the forestry committee in COPA – the European farmers’ organisation in Brussels.

For many Irish farmers, forestry is a secondary enterprise to beef, dairy, tillage and other farming activities. For this reason, there is a huge knowledge gap among private forest owners in relation to the quantities and value of their crop.

We must also remember that forestry is a new commodity for Irish farmers and the knowledge of the sector passed down from the generations before us is very limited.

From dealing with farmers on the ground, it is clear that there is a huge need for guidance and education around timber quantification in private forest plantations.

As a result of this, the IFA recently launched a new service for farm forestry members, called Forest Assessor. The IFA is providing this service to members in association with Treemetrics, which is an international leader in forest measurement, forest valuation and timber yield optimisation. In broad terms, Forest Assessor uses the latest technology to quantify a forest and demonstrate the product mix within the plantation.

Most importantly, this service will provide forest owners with a value of the product mix within their forest and advise a cutting instruction, which will help to achieve the maximum value for the timber.

Harvest monitoring

Another impressive and useful element to the Forest Assessor service is real-time harvest monitoring. By attaching a device onto the harvesting machine, real-time information can be accessed by the forest owner from a remote area in the forest, showing the location of each tree that is being cut.

The forest owner can log on using a laptop or smartphone and watch the current harvest log production. This system gives the forest owner greater control of the product and allows farmers to react to any opportunities or problems that may arise during the harvest.

The IFA believes that this is a valuable and useful device that provides more security for the forest owner in addition to delivering real live data on the volumes of timber being harvested from the plantation. 

Timber mobilisation is another issue among private forest owners. To date, approximately 71,000ha of privately owned forestry in Ireland is beyond the first thinning stage and, of this, only 8% has been thinned. It is clearly evident from these figures that farmers require assistance to efficiently mobilise their timber.

Forest Assessor will help this timber mobilisation by providing farmers with information on the quantities of timber in their forest and also providing owners with quality data on when their timber will be ready to be mobilised.

Thinning

Thinning is a vital part of forest management and is too often overlooked. Although the income from thinning is low, profitability in the long-term will be greater.

Thinning your crop will lead to better quality timber at the end of the growing cycle and a higher value product mix.

The IFA held demonstrations of the Forest Assessor service in Laois, Tipperary and Kilkenny. These events were very well attended by forest owners in the local areas and the attitude from these events is that the service is a useful tool for farm forest owners and it is certainly the way forward.

The IFA will hold events in the Munster, Connacht and Ulster regions over the coming weeks and all forest owners are welcome to attend and experience the service for themselves.

The IFA is confident that this service will help to mobilise more timber from private forest holdings, ensuring that farmers have control of their commodity and achieve the full potential for their crop at the end of the growing cycle.

For more information on the IFA’s Forest Assessor service, forest owners are welcome to contact the IFA on 1890-989398 or visit www.ifa.ie/sectors/forestry