Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 30 May 2019
103. Deputy Jackie Cahill asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on the recent forestry proposal put forward by the European Commission and the one hectare initiative in the next CAP. [23102/19]
View answerI welcome Commissioner Hogan's support of afforestation and, in particular, his recognition that farmers, through planting trees, have an important to role to play in producing public goods which contribute to our biodiversity and climate objectives. We currently support afforestation by farmers with generous grants and premiums under the Forestry Programme 2014 -2020 and encourage farmers to avail of the opportunity to complement their farming enterprise with income support from afforestation.
I recognise that the new CAP offers opportunities for farm forestry and these will be fully examined by my Department in the context of producing a CAP Strategic Plan for the next programming period.
