Forestry 'only show in town' for solving emissions problem

Forestry industry group calls on Government to significantly increase financial incentives to farmers to plant trees

'If Ireland does not use afforestation to balance its agriculture emissions, then the agriculture sector can achieve only minimal emissions reductions.'

Forestry has been dubbed "the only show in town" for decarbonising Ireland's agriculture model and reaching climate goals, while creating rural jobs, according to Forest Industries Ireland (FII).

However, employers' body Ibec warned forestry "can't and won't deliver this because the current forestry schemes are not competitive enough". 

Forestry won't deliver on being a solution to land use emissions "when we are only planting 2,000 hectares per annum rather than 10,000 hectares".

"If Ireland does not use afforestation to balance its agriculture emissions, then the agriculture sector can achieve only minimal emissions reductions," FII said.

We need to incentivise farmers to plant by increasing forestry grants and premiums by the order of 40-50% in the new forestry programme due in January.

"This means adding around €50m to the annual forestry budget but the extra tree planting will enable us to hit our agriculture carbon targets and make huge savings on carbon costs down the line."

According to FII, if Ireland can double the number of farmers who have planted from 23,000 to 46,000, then the annual afforestation target of 10,000 hectares can be achieved, along with an 18% forest cover by mid-century. 

'Planting 138,000 hectares of forest would mean 350m trees, resulting in millions of tonnes of timber being produced for building homes.'

"These new forests alone would yield €3bn-4bn in timber sales for those farmers and create 6,000 new jobs in the next decade," FII said. 

If each new farmer were to plant just the average forest size of six hectares each, this amounts to about 350m new trees. These will absorb millions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere."

FII director Mark McAuley said it was a "no-brainer given that forestry is the second only to dairy in creating wealth for farmers". 

"Planting 138,000 hectares of forest would mean 350m trees, resulting in millions of tonnes of timber being produced for building homes, which will lock away millions of tonnes of harmful carbon in sustainable timber for decades to come whilst displacing carbon-intensive building products and fossil fuels," Mr McAuley said.

“What we need to do to accelerate afforestation is significantly increase financial incentives to farmers, ease access to the forestry schemes, reduce red tape and speed up licensing, and set up payments for ecosystem services and voluntary carbon market."

FII made the call to Government as it showcased the timber industry recently at Murray Timber Group’s modern sawmill in Ballygar.

It is one of the largest members of FII, employing 90 people close to the Roscommon-Galway border. 

This timber business is worth €75m to the immediate local economy and also supports a further 350 jobs through contractors in haulage, forestry harvesting, and planting, FII said. 

Over 600,000 cubic metres of logs, which holds 600,000 tonnes of CO2, are harvested and brought each year to the Ballygar sawmill, which is one of the largest in the country.