Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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72. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the steps he has taken to honour Programme for Government commitments to ensure greater integration and compatibility of the afforestation scheme into the next CAP. [60839/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I am fully committed to better integration between the new National Forestry Programme and the next CAP to ensure the measures in both will complement each other.

The new Forestry Programme will be 100% exchequer funded and will aim to support significant levels of afforestation in line with our target to plant 8,000 hectares of trees per year under the Climate Action Plan 2021, and this will be complemented by tree planting measures under the CAP Strategic Plan.

The planting of trees has the potential to play a significant part in our environmental priorities especially water quality, biodiversity and climate. As outlined in the draft CAP Strategic Plan interventions which have been published for public consultation, the Pillar II Agri-Environment Climate Measure incudes tree planting actions as riparian buffers for water quality, in belts for ammonia capture near the farmyard or in rows, groups or as parkland. Furthermore choosing a tree planting action would, as proposed, give priority access to the agri-environment climate scheme. In addition it is foreseen that agricultural advisors will be responsible for preparing a farm plan which will include a woodland scorecard under certain circumstances.

Actions under the agri-environment climate measure are not at whole farm level, which means actions under the Scheme could co-exist with forestry on the farm. In addition, forestry will continue to attract both grants and premiums under the Forestry Programme in addition to direct payments in accordance with Article 4 of the CAP Strategic Plan regulation.

As the Deputy may be aware we are currently developing a new forest strategy under Project Woodland and this will inform the design of the next Forestry Programme. It is my intention that farmers will be at the heart of the next programme and we will be consulting widely to ensure that the incentives we put in place will encourage farmers to see forestry as complementary to a sustainable farming enterprise.