It's hard to see the wood from the trees at times...

muckymanor said:
Paddy and Mary are the ones applying for the permissions to plant forest on the land that they inherited and then with the licence they are able to sell it to the investors for higher prices than ordinary agricultural land.
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In that circumstance fair enough but why object when Paddy and Mary want to clearfell their forestry or add in roads.
 
nashmach said:
Its rife now anyway, really noticeable around here the last few weeks with the spurt in growth.
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Same as that here. Last year most ash trees only had half the normal leaves. Still waiting to see what will happen this year but it can only be worse - if there's leaves at all.
 
nashmach said:
In that circumstance fair enough but why object when Paddy and Mary want to clearfell their forestry or add in roads.
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They agreed on an overall protest. ie. Bring the whole forestry sector to a halt until their issues were addresses. None of their issues have been addressed yet and these objections have being going on nearly 4 years now so I don't see them pulling back any time soon.
 
muckymanor said:
The first dieback was found in this county. They cut out all the infected trees telling everyone that they had isolated the disease but they stacked them at the entrance to the plantation for 5 years and the disease spread from the cut down trees.
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no they were burned, and initially within 1 or 2 mile radius they cut every ash tree and burned them in piles..
was uproar over all the fences that were damaged felling and removing the trees.
I reckon that the disease was here anyways as you'd see ash in the hedges dying but that when it became that noticeable In Noels plantation thats when alarm bells starting ringing.
 
Bencroy said:
no they were burned, and initially within 1 or 2 mile radius they cut every ash tree and burned them in piles..
was uproar over all the fences that were damaged felling and removing the trees.
I reckon that the disease was here anyways as you'd see ash in the hedges dying but that when it became that noticeable In Noels plantation thats when alarm bells starting ringing.
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The landowner next door to it works with me. A small amount that was initially felled the year after it was first identified were burned. The next year they felled the whole plantation and it was left along the fell road for 5 years according to them. Complaints were made but nothing was done
 
muckymanor said:
The landowner next door to it works with me. A small amount that was initially felled the year after it was first identified were burned. The next year they felled the whole plantation and it was left along the fell road for 5 years according to them. Complaints were made but nothing was done
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it be near Paul alright,if a private landowner acted like them it would end messy the way it was done.
 
muckymanor said:
The landowner next door to it works with me. A small amount that was initially felled the year after it was first identified were burned. The next year they felled the whole plantation and it was left along the fell road for 5 years according to them. Complaints were made but nothing was done
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I'm surprised that they could fell within a year of it being identified as it takes a few years to get a felling licence, a big no no to fell without one unless it was done on a thinning one.
 
Arthur said:
I'm surprised that they could fell within a year of it being identified as it takes a few years to get a felling licence, a big no no to fell without one unless it was done on a thinning one.
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licencing didnt matter as it was a disease control issue ,they just cut it out and travelled through ditches on neighbouring land with machines and left tracks in the fields and broken fences to take out the ash trees out of it in mile to 2 mile radius
 
gone said:
Small land owners been driven out of farm forestry and Coillte being funded and mandated to buy up 250,000 acres of farmland and plant it.
A sad outcome.
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That's a lot of land whatever way you look at it. The cynic in me thinks it's the government effectively strong arming afforestation in a somewhat lazy and callous way. They can say they've met there targets etc.

There is plenty that is attractive about forestry when it's done right and in the hands of local small land owners. I'd love to see a bit more creativity from the government on this but I might be waiting a while.
 
candor said:
That's a lot of land whatever way you look at it. The cynic in me thinks it's the government effectively strong arming afforestation in a somewhat lazy and callous way. They can say they've met there targets etc.

There is plenty that is attractive about forestry when it's done right and in the hands of local small land owners. I'd love to see a bit more creativity from the government on this but I might be waiting a while.
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Coillte being told to stay away from unfarmable land and buy farms outbidding locals. A lot of buying on 250,000 acres of farmland seeing as there was less than 50,000 acres sold in 2020.
www.farmersjournal.ie

Land Report: 2020 - a good year for selling land

There was surprise all round when it became clear that farmland prices were holding up well, despite the pandemic.
www.farmersjournal.ie www.farmersjournal.ie
 
nashmach said:
I thought the days of Cromwell were gone.

An area the same size as Longford, bigger than Dublin, Louth and Carlow.
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They are probably going to run it through the Fair Deal Nursing care Scheme. Look after you for a few years and then plant your land.
 
candor said:
There is plenty that is attractive about forestry when it's done right and in the hands of local small land owners. I'd love to see a bit more creativity from the government on this but I might be waiting a while.
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I might often come across as anti forestry here but I couldn't agree more with your sentiment above. The forestry system was destroyed because, just like the social housing sector, instead of having a system which solved a problem such as carbon emissions or providing affordable houses for people on low incomes, the government set up both systems in order to generate a profit for investors - government cronies. Its all about the back hand in this country. They don't want a scheme that's attractive to local farmers or small farmers in case they were able to make a small amount of money from it.
 
muckymanor said:
I might often come across as anti forestry here but I couldn't agree more with your sentiment above. The forestry system was destroyed because, just like the social housing sector, instead of having a system which solved a problem such as carbon emissions or providing affordable houses for people on low incomes, the government set up both systems in order to generate a profit for investors - government cronies. Its all about the back hand in this country. They don't want a scheme that's attractive to local farmers or small farmers in case they were able to make a small amount of money from it.
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That is like a lot of schemes and is about transferring money to an inner circle while leaving Joe Sixpack thinking he got something out of it.
 
muckymanor said:
I might often come across as anti forestry here but I couldn't agree more with your sentiment above. The forestry system was destroyed because, just like the social housing sector, instead of having a system which solved a problem such as carbon emissions or providing affordable houses for people on low incomes, the government set up both systems in order to generate a profit for investors - government cronies. Its all about the back hand in this country. They don't want a scheme that's attractive to local farmers or small farmers in case they were able to make a small amount of money from it.
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Not doubting you at all but can you explain how investors make more money than farmers fro forestry?
At one time farmers got higher grants than others,is that correct?
 
Seedsower said:
Not doubting you at all but can you explain how investors make more money than farmers fro forestry?
At one time farmers got higher grants than others,is that correct?
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I didn't say that investors make more money than farmers. I'm saying that the system has been set up to attract investors into forestry and this has taken farmers out of the system and unable to compete. In this area, Farmers cannot get finance from banks for to buy land unless they are going to plant all of it. There are companies coming in and buying up farmland at hugely inflated prices for this area and this leaves a farmer who plants some of his poorer land unable to buy more land. Farmers want to farm and most don't see the proposal of planting a monoculture of sika spruce (really the only thing that will grow on shallow soils) as farming because once it is planted, there is no option to ever do anything with the land again other than grow trees. The lack of a proper agro forestry scheme has meant that the only option for a viable return from forestry in this area is spruce (or birch if you aren't concerned about a return from your timber). Farmers have already see how sika spruce forestry has wiped out whole communities in this county. Whole townlands under trees. We see a lack of management - land is planted just to harvest the grants, not to produce quality trees. Next time there's a storm, look at the powercheck map and see how much and where the power is out in this county - half the county goes black during a storm because trees fall onto the lines. Many farmers don't want these issues in their communities. It has been brought to the attention of the powers that be for many years now. There have been many suggestions made as to how the issues can be addressed and how more farmers can be encouraged to plant forestry in a more sustainable manner - but the powers that be have chosen to ignore it and push on by bringing the grant for non farmers to the same level as farmers, by telling lies about the number of forests that are owned by farmers (more than 60% of forests in the county are owned by non-farmers (investors) yet the department tell us that it's only 10% (Research has been done in every townland in the county).
 
muckymanor said:
I didn't say that investors make more money than farmers. I'm saying that the system has been set up to attract investors into forestry and this has taken farmers out of the system and unable to compete. In this area, Farmers cannot get finance from banks for to buy land unless they are going to plant all of it. There are companies coming in and buying up farmland at hugely inflated prices for this area and this leaves a farmer who plants some of his poorer land unable to buy more land. Farmers want to farm and most don't see the proposal of planting a monoculture of sika spruce (really the only thing that will grow on shallow soils) as farming because once it is planted, there is no option to ever do anything with the land again other than grow trees. The lack of a proper agro forestry scheme has meant that the only option for a viable return from forestry in this area is spruce (or birch if you aren't concerned about a return from your timber). Farmers have already see how sika spruce forestry has wiped out whole communities in this county. Whole townlands under trees. We see a lack of management - land is planted just to harvest the grants, not to produce quality trees. Next time there's a storm, look at the powercheck map and see how much and where the power is out in this county - half the county goes black during a storm because trees fall onto the lines. Many farmers don't want these issues in their communities. It has been brought to the attention of the powers that be for many years now. There have been many suggestions made as to how the issues can be addressed and how more farmers can be encouraged to plant forestry in a more sustainable manner - but the powers that be have chosen to ignore it and push on by bringing the grant for non farmers to the same level as farmers, by telling lies about the number of forests that are owned by farmers (more than 60% of forests in the county are owned by non-farmers (investors) yet the department tell us that it's only 10% (Research has been done in every townland in the county).
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Do you have a link to the data regarding forest ownership?
 
candor said:
Do you have a link to the data regarding forest ownership?
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I don't have a link. It is research for an ongoing study and has not been published yet. There was a published document on the department's web page stating that only 10% of forests in the county were owned by investment companies but it was challenged and they removed it
 
muckymanor said:
I don't have a link. It is research for an ongoing study and has not been published yet. There was a published document on the department's web page stating that only 10% of forests in the county were owned by investment companies but it was challenged and they removed it
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Cheers, would be interesting to see the published study once it's done.
 
There is only one thing attracting investors to forestry and that is the returns to be made compared to other long term asset classes such as bonds.

It's a function of the market and not fair to say that the grant paid available is the only thing which is skewing it.
 
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