DEAR SIR:

I read with interest Matt Dempsey’s Viewpoints article “Forestry replanting obligation a mistake” in the Irish Farmers Journal issue dated 16 December.

I wish to congratulate Matt on his knowledge and impartial opinion on this highly controversial and sensitive topic. We are all very conscious and aware of Ireland’s position with regard to climate change and Kyoto targets, of which I have no doubt forestry has a very important role in helping to meet those targets into the future.

The present situation, as Matt Dempsey specified in his article, is directly as a result of misunderstanding of the farmer thinking both in the short and long term. As current law states under the Forestry Act, once land is planted, that land must remain in forestry for evermore. I pose this question – what farmer would contemplate planting land under these current rules?

Currently, if a farmer was to plant a block of land, for example 50 acres, the market value of this parcel of land could be in the region of €500,000. At the single stroke of a pen, once the land is planted, the land value is automatically halved, €200,000 to €250,000 at best. For the first 15 years, the landowner will receive a payment, which in some areas is less than the rental value of the land if it were still in agricultural production, which I might add could potentially be received tax-free under a long-term lease arrangement.

Farmers on their own

Once those 15 years have elapsed, all forestry premiums stop. From that point, the farmer is on his own with an income from thinnings that wouldn’t buy salt for his egg.

Once that plantation reaches maturity at approximately 30 to 35 years, very often the next generation has taken ownership of the land. This generation is then left without options or free choice because of the decisions of a previous generation. Now we arrive at a situation where the land must be replanted and maintained, without forestry premium or subsidy, forever more. In my opinion, this is the primary reason why we continue to fall short of our annual planting targets each year. It baffles me as to how the powers that be fail to see what is happening on the ground.

If the current rules were to be relaxed and as soon as a crop has been clearfelled, the landowner were to have the freedom to choose what the next crop should be, the mind-set of landowners towards forestry in this country would be hugely altered.

Let me make myself clear – I am not anti-forestry. I have demonstrated this over the past number of years by planting oak and beech trees in suitable locations on my farm. It is my opinion that, if these current ridiculous rules were to be relaxed, it would open the doors for 1m acres of marginal land to be planted, freeing up another 50,000 acres of some of the best land in the country already in forestry or, worse still, in scrub to be used for more appropriate farming enterprises.

Environmental challenges

With all the talk of the ever-decreasing agricultural area available for food production globally and the challenges we face from increasing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, surely this is the most appropriate and flexible solution for the generations to come.