DEAR SIR: Simon White’s letter in the Irish Farmers JournalWhy is carbon mitigation so overlooked? [30 July] questions the motives behind the Green Party’s attitude to afforestation, when he wrote that the Green’s (and by extension the Government’s) position is a political one with no environmental or scientific foundation.

The question must now be asked if the Government’s real intention is to hand all land management to a public entity like Coillte?

And why did Pippa Hackett avoid the opportunity to hear from, and talk to, the sector, for example by not attending the forestry presentation at the recent conference in Gurteen College Energy in Agriculture? What is going on?

Eamon Ryan harps on about minor and eccentric measures like anaerobic digesters and wetting lands, but inexplicably shies away from the most effective climate mitigation plan.

Corporations make claims that they are carbon neutral through their ability to offset emissions, while farmers with a land base are denied this opportunity

As the Climate Change Advisory Council has reported: “Afforestation is the single largest land mitigation measure available in Ireland.”

Farmers are the foresters and potential foresters both now and in the future, and to not tap into this resource with eyes wide open is not to be countenanced.

We also have a professional cadre of forestry companies built up over the last 45 years.

Are we to allow them to go to the wall and lose valuable, skilled and sustainable jobs just when they are most needed?

Corporations make claims that they are carbon neutral through their ability to offset emissions, while farmers with a land base are denied this opportunity.

It is impossible to justify this and makes no sense to be hobbling farmers in their struggle to play their part in climate control.