When the current forestry programme was drafted in 2014, the Forest Service proposed that forest owners planting over 8ha would receive €20/ha more in their annual premium than those planting less than 8ha.

The proposal was made to encourage large-scale afforestation as larger forest units are more economical to manage, especially at the harvesting and marketing stage. The IFA opposed the proposal, not necessarily because it disagreed with the principle that revenue per hectare increases as the forest size increases, but farm forestry chair Michael Fleming and his team argued that a two-tier premium system would provide an unfair advantage to large-scale forest owners.

The proposal was dropped but it did create a debate on what is a viable forest area. While average plantation size in Ireland is 9ha, this is not an inconsiderable area, when compared with the average farm size of 33ha. Unlike Scandinavian countries where land use is largely based on a wood culture, forestry in Ireland is assessed as a land use option in a food culture.

And while a number of reports show that forestry is the best land use option on marginal agricultural land, many farmers are understandably cautious about the decision to plant, not least due to its permanency as a land use.

The forestry option is as much about cultural as commercial choice.

So, the proposal to further incentivise larger afforestation units, makes sense if forestry is treated on its own merits. However, forestry in Ireland is inextricable linked with agriculture in terms of land competition and associated factors including landscape and lifestyle, as well as the scale of forestry development.

Scale

Forestry is seen as a large-scale land option and this view is not confined to Ireland. Our State forests, like public forests around Europe, were created as a result of large-scale government-backed forestry programmes. Private institutional investment in forestry also favours acquiring and managing large units.

Farm forestry is different but there is a misconception that the forestry programme is geared towards large-scale afforestation. Since the 1980s, the average forest parcel size planted by farmers was 5ha compared with 15ha for non-farmer investors.

The Department’s Forestry Standards and Procedures Manual provides flexibility regarding the size of grant aided forests.

For a proposed conifer plantation not adjoining another forest, the planted area needs to be at least 1.0ha (2.47 acres) or 0.25ha (0.61 acre) if adjoining an existing forest.

For a broadleaf plantation, the area must not be less than 0.1ha (0.25 acre) or in the case of an agroforestry plot at least 0.5ha (1.23 acres)

Small-scale forests

Take the case of the farmer who wishes to experiment by planting “a few acres”, before making the decision to plant a larger area.

He wants to know if there are any schemes available to cover all the establishment costs (cultivation, plants, stakes, vegetation control, etc).

Because of the replanting obligation and the permanency of forestry, he wants to plant approximately four acres of his farm to begin with and if this works out, he plans to plant more land. If the experiment is not a success, he is not unduly worried about the replanting obligation as the area planted is less than 4% of his 50ha farm. In all, he thinks 12ha or one third of the farm might be suitable for forestry while the remaining two thirds is excellent land, which will be retained in agriculture.

While the administration and establishment costs for planting areas of this size are high, should they be discounted?

There are a number of reasons why they should be encouraged. First, grant aiding small areas provides an incentive to plant unproductive sections of land that would otherwise lie idle in an intensely managed traditional food producing farm.

Second, it provides an opportunity for repeat planting. Many forest owners repeat plant according to the Department report Ireland’s Forests – Annual Statistics, which maintains that “nearly half of the individual [forest] owners have had two or more grant aided forests planted”.

In other words, by encouraging farmers to plant even a small area, you let them trial forestry to allow them to get used to a land use they have little experience of, so over time they can make up their minds about future planting judged on the experience gained.

The third reason for farmers to experiment with small-scale forestry is that they can experience a range of benefits in microcosm such as timber goods, including fuel wood, fencing material and construction wood, as well as non-wood benefits including shelter and landscape enhancement.

Finally, planting an area of as little as four acres can supply an annual tax-free income of €1,000 over 15 years, while the total establishment costs up to €9,000 are covered (Table 1). Since 1980, almost 30,000 parcels of land have been planted in Ireland by private landowners, mainly farmers. Allowing for repeat planting, close to 20,000 private forest owners have received grant aid to establish forests.

There are approximately 140,000 farms in Ireland so at least 120,000 have no forests. Many of their owners are unlikely to plant for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being that the land is more suitable for food production than forestry.

We now know that there are 500,000ha of poor to marginal land in Ireland where forestry is regarded as the best land use without negatively affecting agricultural production. But there are also small parcels of land (averaging between 1.5ha and 2.5ha) even on productive farms, which could also be planted. Even if 1.6ha or four acres were planted in half of Ireland’s productive farms, close to 100,000ha could be established to supplement the annual afforestation programme. These would provide 18bn tonnes of carbon storage over the rotation lengths of these future forests.

The average size of private grant-aided afforestation in Ireland is 9ha, according to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine report Ireland’s Forests – Annual Statistics. The average size of holdings in 1988 to 2002 was 10ha but, since 2011, the average afforestation area has fallen to 6.2ha.

Average size

Private forest holdings in the EU have an average size of 13ha, according to the EU Agriculture and Development report. It acknowledges that there is considerable variation in forest size among member states as “the vast majority of private owners have holdings of less than 3ha”.

The average size of private forest ownership in the US is estimated at 17ha, while hardwood producers in the eastern states have an average woodland area of 20ha, according to the American Hardwood Export Council.