I 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.