Farmers must have the right economic incentive to plant trees, director of Forest Industries Ireland (FII) Mark McAuley has said.

The EU's concept of “payments to farmers and foresters for the carbon sequestration”, funded by the CAP, would help move things in the right direction, McAuley told the Irish Farmers Journal in response to this week’s Farm to Fork and biodiversity strategies.

“At farm level, we will need to find the land to plant the right trees, for the right purpose, in the right place. This will have multiple facets including productive mixed-species forestry, native woodlands and small- to large-scale forests.

“Our farmers hold the key to unlocking the potential of forestry in Ireland. Their participation is essential if we are to restore afforestation levels to the target of 8,000ha per annum. We are currently planting less than half that amount.

“We can sequester an additional 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide if we plant 8,000ha per annum from now until 2050,” he said.

Scale

FII strongly supports the scale and ambition of the EU's afforestation plans under its biodiversity strategy and green deal.

“The EU has always recognised that a major afforestation programme driven by a progressive EU forest policy is essential to Europe’s drive to become carbon neutral.

“Indeed, the analysis in Ireland shows that forestry has a bigger potential to decarbonise agriculture than all of the envisaged agriculture measures put together. That is the scale of the land-use issue and Ireland needs to get its land-use strategy right,” he said.

The biodiversity strategy has said it will be crucial to define, map, monitor and strictly protect all the EU’s remaining primary and old-growth forests into the future.

McAuley said the best way to protect the world’s old-growth forests is to provide the timber products that we all need by planting new forests that will produce the timber we need.

“Indeed, we should be using more wood because it is a sustainable building product that displaces carbon intensive products and fossil fuels,” he said.

Ambitious

FII feels that the strategies are progressive and ambitious.

“They recognise the need for major action at EU and member state level to generate change in land use and farming.

“Ireland must be given the freedom in its national strategic plan under the next CAP to effectively implement the strategy on the ground. There must be flexibilities and adequate rewards for farmers. We need broad participation across the country, as this is the best way to get the scale of land-use change we need.

“The concept of ‘additionality’ is important. New green farming activities must be additional to what would happen anyway.

“The EU is trying to generate change, so it is not effective to make payments for business as usual.

“FII hopes that the strategy will be a genuine catalyst for change. New woodlands and forests will be an economic, social and environmental asset to our countryside, so we should ensure farmers are rewarded for planting them,” McAuley said.

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