Protests highlight growing discontent in horticulture and forestry sectors

There are currently 6,000 forestry licences backlogged in the Department

Val Farrell, Chair IFA’s Irish Hardy Nursery Stock Association; IFA President, Tim Cullinan; and Paul Brophy, Chairman IFA Horticulture Committee, protesting alongside horticulture workers outside the Convention centre on Tuesday. Picture: Finbarr O’Rourke. 

Growing discontent in the horticulture and forestry sectors led to protests by those impacted this week.

On Tuesday horticultural growers demonstrated outside the Convention Centre where the Dail was sitting to highlight the challenges they are facing as a result of restrictions on the harvesting of peat.

Following a ruling of the High Court in September 2019, harvesting of peat from bogs greater than 30 hectares now requires all harvesters to go through a complex licensing and planning regime.

Horticultural peat harvesting on bogs has all but ceased and there are genuine fears that Irish peat supplies will be exhausted by September.

On Wednesday farmer foresters took to the Convention Centre to point out the crisis in the sector and the need for emergency legislation to reform the licence system.

Forest owners protest over the licensing fiasco and looming crisis within the sector. Picture: Eamon Farrell/RollingNews.ie

There are currently 6,000 licences backlogged in the Department.

Ministers Charlie McConalogue and Pippa Hackett met with foresters and highlighted that improvements are being made and will continue through Project Woodland.

“In terms of figures, we explained that in June of this year 411 licenses were issued,” they added.

“80% of those were private, the highest number of private licenses issued in one month in five years.

“We also updated them on staffing increases, in terms of ecologists, inspectors and administrators.” 

But, there is a wider issue in terms of afforestation levels and meeting the demands of the Climate Action Bill, and Minister McConalogue acknowledged this when foresters raised the matter.

“We are also focussed on the wider issue which is to devise a vision for Irish forestry for the next 100 years,” he continued.

“We need as a country to agree on what we want from our trees, so that our woodlands and forests work for our communities, for industry and for biodiversity.

“With the help of the farmers protesting today, and other stakeholders, Project Woodland is both fixing the current issues and working on the longer-term vision.

“It involves representatives from all stakeholders, coming together in working groups, along with officials and outside expertise, to fix the backlog, reform the process, make organisational structures fit for purpose, and also devise that new strategy.” 

Meanwhile, the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has warned that without immediate Government intervention to allow the harvesting of peat, the Irish horticultural sector faces “wipe out”.

“As a major segment of the Irish horticulture sector relies on peat, particularly the mushroom and ornamental sectors, the restrictions on peat harvesting is having devastating consequences,” its president, Tim Cullinan said.

“Producers will either have to close their business or import peat, which will make some businesses unviable because of the extra cost.

“Ireland’s horticultural sector has a farm gate value of €477m.

“There are over 17,000 jobs in the sector, which includes an estimated 6,600 people directly employed full-time with another 11,000 being indirectly employed in value-added and downstream businesses.

Val Farrell, Chairman IFA’s Irish Hardy Nursery Stock Association, works on a display during the ’No Peat - No Produce’ protest Picture: Finbarr O’Rourke. 

“As it stands, we will be forced to import peat from Europe and the Baltic, which is at odds with the green credentials of the horticultural sector.” The area of peatland required to supply the Irish horticultural industry is just over 1/10 th of 1% (.12%) of Ireland’s total area of peatlands.

To further compound the issue, there is a shortage of peat on the European market and growers are having their orders refused.

On Thursday, members of the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine gave a commitment to those working in the horticulture sector to meet with department ministers in an effort to find an immediate resolution to what its chairman, Jackie Cahill described, as “a crisis engulfing Ireland’s horticultural sector”.

Growing Media Ireland (GMI), the representative group for the majority of horticultural peat and growing media producers in Ireland, warned that over 17,000 jobs across Ireland’s horticultural sector are at real risk of being lost over the coming months because of ongoing restrictions on peat harvesting.

It says that the entire sector has experienced extreme challenges over the past 18 months, following the High Court ruling and that horticultural peat harvesting on Irish bogs has all but ceased.

“This commitment to meeting with the various departments is a positive step in the right direction to hopefully securing a necessary resumption of peat harvesting,” John Neenan, Chairman of GMI said.

“Thousands of jobs in the midlands and West of Ireland across our sector will be lost unless we can get back to peat harvesting this summer.”

Friends of the Irish Environment’s director Caroline Lewis, who sits on the Government’s use of peat in horticulture working group, added that while workers in the horticulture industry had every right to be aggrieved, forcing the Government to change the law “yet again” was not the answer.

Forest owners are concerned over the sector-wide crisis that has emerged. Picture: Eamon Farrell/RollingNews.ie

“As far back as 2004 the European Commission told Ireland that its policy and legislation on peat extraction infringed important community law,” she said.

“It has been clear nationally since a 2013 ruling by An Bord Pleanala that these operations require planning permission but instead of following due process they forced a change in the law that mocked European legislation and was struck down by our High Court in 2020.

“The Working Group has agreed that peat will be entirely phased out by 2030.

“As an interim measure, we have recommended financial support for the industry to import growing media while scaling up alternatives nationally.