The latest data on afforestation shows a major drop in planting for the first half of the year. Grant approvals were issued for 2,426ha compared with 3,057ha for the same period in 2016 when an eventual planting programme of 6,500ha was achieved.

The planting target this year is 7,140ha, but to achieve this, mid-year planting should be at least 3,300ha. At 30% below the expected outturn, forestry companies and nurseries fear that the annual programme may struggle to exceed 6,000ha.

The year began positively with planting higher than 2016. However, the programme seems to have dropped alarmingly in May and June when grants were paid for 940ha compared with 1,568ha last year. It will be difficult to rescue the programme over the remainder of the year as the planting season is now virtually over and will not recommence until late October or early November.

Michael Moroney of Green Belt maintained that allowing for an increase in July planting, and possibly a fortnight in August – weather depending – “3,000ha would need to be planted during November and December to achieve the 7,140ha planting programme”. A late planting surge of this magnitude hasn’t been achieved for decades, so what chance this year?

Nursery production

John Kavanagh, nursery manager, None so Hardy Nurseries, said that if the demand arose, his team could deliver sufficient plants for a 3,000ha planting programme in November and December. “This would be a major test for the nursery, but this target has been met before,” he said. “If the programme is managed correctly, we can deliver up to seven million plants during the final two months, which would service a programme of this magnitude. However, this would require the cooperation of all stakeholders including the Forest Service, and forestry companies.”

Most of the forestry companies believe that an intensive end of year programme of this size “would present a huge challenge” but could be achieved if all sectors bought into achieving targets including monthly progress monitoring.

Monthly targets

“No organisation in the world should approach a target, without dividing it up into monthly or weekly deliverables,” said John O’Reilly, chief executive, Green Belt Ltd. “All staff engaged in the delivery of the national target should have their achievements reviewed against these targets.”

All agreed that the programme should be performance-assessed monthly beginning this month to calculate approvals to ensure that ground preparation can begin in September and planting begins in late October or early November. A Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine spokesperson said: “The Department is committed to doing everything it can to achieve the Forestry Programme targets and is engaged in a number of initiatives with the sector to see what more can be done to increase uptake of the scheme.”

The Department and Forest Service view is that there needs to be sufficient numbers of applications in the system to ensure that adequate planting approvals are issued. However, Daragh Little, chair of the Irish Forestry and Forest Products Association, maintained that the turnaround time is too long between technical and financial approvals.

John O’Reilly, Green Belt maintained that approvals are often too restrictive and not what the farmer applied for and requires when biodiversity and set back areas are subtracted from the original application. The unproductive areas which the farmer is expected to manage without an income is a major barrier, according to Pat Collins of the IFA. “I believe that until farmers are paid on all the land submitted for afforestation, the number of farmers planting will continue to decline,” he said.

Promotion

Four forestry companies said that the afforestation scheme is not being promoted positively enough. The Department spokesperson disputed this. “The Department alongside Teagasc will continue to roll out its promotion campaign for the afforestation programme,” she said.

“Over the past 12 months, this has included advertisements on national and local radio, numerous newspaper articles, promotional videos shown across the country in marts and also at the National Ploughing Championships.”

“Forestry is best sold face to face by foresters,” maintained Daragh Little and an increase in grants of up to 20% would cover some of the forester’s promotional input as well as contractors’ costs.

Contractors

The importance of forestry contractors in achieving a viable forestry programme is often forgotten. Daragh Little believes the contracting sector has not been allowed to increase rates for many years as the margins in the grants simply do not allow it.

“At a time when we are approaching full employment, we are losing skilled workers to higher paying jobs in construction with better employee conditions,” he said. “The Forest Service fails to understand this point which is really frustrating. The forest policy is ultimately about creating jobs in rural Ireland. It cannot do that when pay rates are so low. Increasing rates will lift all boats, sending out a positive message that forestry is a good career choice.”

Land availability

Since the Department Land Availability for Afforestation report was launched 18 months ago, virtually all the spokespersons complained about lack of progress in addressing afforestation especially on unenclosed land.

The report identifies an additional 0.5m ha of land as economically and environmentally suitable for forestry without negatively affecting agricultural production.

Virtually all this land is effectively banned from the planting programme maintains John Jackson, former chair of the IFA forestry group. As a result annual afforestation in Donegal has declined from 2,000ha in the mid-nineties to 36ha last year.