Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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741. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will confirm that three trees per hectare is all that is being considered with regard to tree planting in the new CAP 2023-2027; his views on whether this will assist Ireland in meetings its climate change commitments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58253/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Significant tree planting measures are proposed within Ireland’s draft CAP Strategic Plan.

The proposed Agri-Environment Climate Measure contains options for planting trees in rows, groups or parkland, including the option of planting a tree belt for ammonia recapture adjacent to a farmyard, or planting trees on a riparian buffer adjacent to a watercourse as appropriate. Over 50,000 farmers are expected to participate in the scheme.

The Eco-Scheme will be an annual agri-environmental scheme under the next CAP. To participate in any given year, a farmer will have to select two actions from a list of options. The proposed list includes an option to plant three trees per hectare in the year. This equates to 100 trees for a farmer with the national average farm size of just over 33 hectares per annum. There is also a proposed enhanced tree planting option where a farmer can plant double the numbers outlined above annually if they wish to solely plant trees to draw down their Eco-Scheme payment.

Regarding climate commitments, trees that occur in hedgerows or outside forests are not considered forest and are not included as part of the land use sector for national greenhouse gas reporting. To address the lack of data on carbon sequestration by such trees, Teagasc are undertaking a research project called “Farm-Carbon – Farm Hedgerows and Non-forest Woodland Carbon” which may provide for these trees to be counted in the inventory in the future.

In addition to the tree planting proposed under CAP, my Department will continue to promote afforestation including broadleaf planting to contribute to the achievement of our climate change targets.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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742. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on whether CAP 2023-2027 is an ideal opportunity to incentivise afforestation to meet both the Programme for Government, Food Vision 2030 and the Climate Action Plan Afforestation targets which have not been met for many years due to the exclusion of afforestation from CAP; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58254/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Afforestation rates have seen a decline in recent years and there are many reasons for fall-off in interest in planting, including negative perceptions of forestry, competition for land and regulatory difficulties. It will be the challenge of the next Forestry Programme to incentivise and promote forestry.

As set out in the Programme for Government, this Government is committed to a new national Forestry Programme. The aim is that this new Forestry Programme will highlight to farmers that forestry can represent a valuable and complementary income stream to an active farming enterprise.

The new Forestry Programme will be the main implementation vehicle of the new Forest Strategy which is currently being developed as part of the work of Project Woodland. The new strategy will be based on a national shared vision.

A comprehensive consultation process for the new vision and strategy have commenced and I would like to invite everyone who has an interest in forestry to actively participate in this consultation exercise.

The new Forestry Programme will again be funded nationally and will be subject to State aid approval by the European Commission.

Due to the long-term nature of forestry, it is not proposed to include forest planting measures in the new CAP measures, however, as the CAP framework normally sets the requirements for the new EU State aid Guidelines, there will be close alignment between the two programmes.

In respect of the integration of forestry and the next CAP, as outlined in the CSP draft interventions that have been published by my Department, several tree planting measures have been proposed to be included in the CAP Strategic Plan.

The new Forestry Programme and the new CAP will provide opportunities to further align agricultural support schemes and forestry, to better integrate planting into the farming system, and to remove any barriers to uptake.