I propose to take Questions Nos. 696 to 699, inclusive, together.
Following on from Parliamentary Question No. 354 of 9th December, 2021, 682 GLAS participants planted a total of 3,702ha. This is broken down by year in the table below.
Year
|
Number
|
Ha
|
2016
|
225
|
1,277
|
2017
|
201
|
1,059
|
2018
|
106
|
584
|
2019
|
86
|
504
|
2020
|
64
|
277
|
As previously advised to the Deputy in Parliamentary Question 747 of 30th November of the 48,000 GLAS participants, just over 7,000 of those have a forest owner number with my Department. This means that they either had an application to plant or planted forestry, before or since joining GLAS. At 14.5%, this is a significant block of GLAS participants that have an interest in Forestry. The 682 that received the first instalment grant and first premium, during their participation in GLAS is a subset of those 7,000 farmers.