Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 11 October 2018
152. Deputy Jackie Cahill asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of farmers and non-farmers participating in planting schemes under the Forestry Programme 2014-2020 nationally and by county in tabular form. [41678/18]
View answerThere is no distinction between farmers and non-farmers under the 2014-2020 Forestry Programme as the aim is to make the afforestation scheme accessible to all landowners; this allows retired farmers, sons and daughters of farmers or other relatives who might have inherited land but who have careers outside of farming to take part in the scheme, as well as other private investors.
My Department compiles a number of different afforestation statistics annually, which are made available on my Department's website. Those statistics include payments made to farmers and non-farmers. For the purposes of data collection, it should be noted that the category of "non-farmer" also includes recently retired farmers or their sons and daughters or other family members. This means that the vast bulk of premiums under the afforestation scheme are paid to and remain in rural Ireland.
The following table provides a breakdown of the number of farmers and non farmers that have planted since the start of the current Forestry Programme (2015, 2016, 2017 and up to the 8th October 2018).
|
- |
NUMBER OF FARMERS |
NUMBER OF NON FARMERS |
|
CARLOW |
26 |
7 |
|
CAVAN |
119 |
76 |
|
CLARE |
202 |
108 |
|
CORK |
195 |
88 |
|
DONEGAL |
25 |
14 |
|
DUBLIN |
4 |
3 |
|
GALWAY |
166 |
69 |
|
KERRY |
143 |
81 |
|
KILDARE |
16 |
12 |
|
KILKENNY |
88 |
15 |
|
LAOIS |
40 |
24 |
|
LEITRIM |
142 |
90 |
|
LIMERICK |
79 |
31 |
|
LONGFORD |
110 |
43 |
|
LOUTH |
10 |
7 |
|
MAYO |
198 |
95 |
|
MEATH |
37 |
28 |
|
MONAGHAN |
25 |
17 |
|
OFFALY |
58 |
28 |
|
ROSCOMMON |
179 |
79 |
|
SLIGO |
108 |
44 |
|
TIPPERARY |
84 |
43 |
|
WATERFORD |
62 |
14 |
|
WESTMEATH |
83 |
37 |
|
WEXFORD |
60 |
22 |
|
WICKLOW |
48 |
32 |
|
TOTAL |
2307 |
1107 |
