Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 November 2021
747. Deputy Jackie Cahill asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will instruct an immediate examination of the cause in fall-off of farmer planting from 852 farmers in 2015 to 100 in 2020 during the term of the GLAS; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58345/21]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Green, Low-carbon, Agri-environment Scheme (GLAS) offered farmers a suite of actions that could be carried out across their holding on a parcel-by-parcel basis. This allowed parcels to remain free of GLAS actions for other uses including forestry. The GLAS terms and conditions outline that afforestation is fully compatible with GLAS and is recognised as contributing to the creation of a valuable landscape mosaic at farm-level. The Scheme also had the “Planting a Grove of Native Trees” action which has been chosen by over 3,600 farmers and resulted in the planting of over 1.5 million trees.
Analysis shows since the start of the scheme, approximately 1,000 GLAS participants have applied for or have in fact gone on to plant forestry.
It is now well-established that the overall number of landowners, both farmers and non-farmers who are choosing to plant forestry is in decline.
There are many reasons for this decline, landowners have options for their land, including lease or the sale of lands and regulatory difficulties. I would also like to note that non-farmer applicants may well be the relative of a deceased or retired farmer, who have made the decision to plant forestry rather than farm the land.
Along with Minister of State Pippa Hackett, who has overall responsibility for the sector, I am anxious that farmers engage with forestry and I acknowledge that current licensing difficulties are likely a contributory factor in terms of reduced interest.
This is a priority issue for me and my Department and is being dealt under Project Woodland. Alongside Project Woodland, we are committed to improving our delivery and we now have 10 ecologists assigned exclusively to afforestation files.
We intend to recruit more ecologists for afforestation and are working to streamline the processing of these files. While these changes will take some time to work through the system, we anticipate that they will deliver an increase in the number of afforestation files issuing.
The Department is working to ensure that there is integration between Agri-Environment schemes in CAP and the new Forestry Programme. It is intended that tree planting measures will form part of the new Agri-Environment schemes.
The transitional REAP scheme (a results-based payment approach for grasslands) has, for instance, complementary tree-planting actions. In addition, direct payments will be eligible to be made on areas afforested under the new CSP, in accordance with the conditions set out in Article 4(4).c(iii) of the draft CSP Regulation.
There will also be an opportunity with the proposed new Forest Strategy, which will underpin the next Forestry Programme, to look at new at ways in which to engage farmers and indeed all of society with our ambition to create 8,000 hectare of forest per year. We will be undertaking an extensive consultation exercise to inform our response to this challenge and I would encourage all those interested in the future of forestry in Ireland to take part in this process.
