Written answers

Thursday, 22 June 2017

Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Afforestation Programme

Photo of Brendan SmithBrendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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42. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to change the premium payments for afforestation to ensure that full time farmers receive a higher rate payment than persons that are not dependent on farming for an income; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28151/17]

Photo of Michael CreedMichael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Under the current Forestry Programme 2014 – 2020 a single premium rate for farmers and non-farmers was introduced as part of my Department’s redesigned afforestation scheme. This means that all applicants, apart from public bodies, are eligible for the same annual premium payment. Up to this point European Council Regulation 1698/2005 on support for rural development had set a higher rate for farmers than for non-farmers. This distinction did not appear in the replacement to this regulation which exists under the current Common Agriculture Policy.

The single premium rate does not diminish in any way the financial benefits that farmers can enjoy if they decide to plant trees. In fact a recent Teagasc study showed that on marginal land switching from some cattle systems to forestry can yield a net gain as high as €228 per hectare for each year of the forest rotation.   The net return from changing from a sheep system to forestry is largely similar. This analysis is based on current afforestation grant and premium rates and on Farm Family Income reported in Teagasc’s 2015 National Farm Survey.

The introduction of the single premium rate was designed to make the afforestation scheme more accessible to landowners who were not farming the land themselves; this would include sons and daughters of farmers or other relatives who might have inherited land but who have careers outside of farming. This approach also includes institutional investors such as pension funds, although in these cases having to purchase land first makes forestry a less attractive investment. My Department continues to view the single premium approach as an important strategy in increasing forest cover in Ireland. Our aim in this regard is to achieve forest cover of 18% by 2050. Consequently there are no plans to revert back to an afforestation scheme which offers higher premiums to farmers than to non-farmers and our focus now is working to achieve the targets set out in the Forestry Programme up to 2020.

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