That would be amazing. The coniferous forests they are planting all over the place do nothing for biodiversity and only seem to produce wasteland below them
This is a genuinely good idea. Is it opposite day?!
It’s a great idea, but it’ll require a fair bit of funding. I’ve worked in the forestry sector, and sadly there is no financial reason for farmers to plant native braodleaf trees, which typically require better land. It’s a lot more profitable to plant sitka on wetland used by migratory birds. Fact is, they take too long to grow compared to non native conifers, if a farmer is looking for is a pension investment.
If this is properly funded, we could plant a temperate rainforest all along the west coast in the next two decades, but no farmer is going to take a financial hit without the grants
We need trees.
I like this idea.
I thought this was already a thing way back in 2014. Maybe the scheme ended.
Can somebody please tell me why Irish farmers look at trees so differently then they do at any other crop ? Usually Sitka Spruce only gets planted on the worst part of the farm and then they complain about how slow they grow … now the plan is to plant indigenous trees where the companies won’t even plant sitka ? And we will expect them to flourish ?
We should use the best part of the farm to grow the most valuable crop, we import most of the valuable timber while we have the perfect climate and soils to grow them here … we could so easily become an exporter of valuable timber and deal with the carbon crisis …
Yet we keep exporting heavily subsidised meat and dairy so we out compete farmers in other parts of the planet …
Think we have to rethink the whole system rather then tinker around the edges with these Mickley mouse schemes to make ourselves feel like we are doing something …
public money for public goods.
on top of being a so called carbon sink, they also help to stabilise ground, slow run off from storms reducing flooding and offer important habitats to native animals.
There is no shortage of land in the country that is too marginal to farm intensely. I honestly don’t see how it can’t be too big of a job to let this ground grow wild. We don’t even need to plant trees. That isn’t the best either but we can allow natural regeneration to take over – particularly when there are native trees close by – let nature take care of it. All we need to do is control our own inputs – don’t drain it or actively actively work it. reduce stocking rates and allow nature to take its course. It is crazy how quick nature can return when this is allowed to happen.
Then we will actually have a proper habitat on our hands, nothing in nature is uniform and there is nothing natural about having acres upon acres of similar ages of trees with an even tree canopy. A natural forest has gaps in the canopy at different times of the year with different species thriving at different times it has old trees that have been knocked over with an array of creepy crawlies and fungi etc growing out of them which become important micro habitats in themselves, not to mention the flowers that bloom in the spring before certain trees close over.
The only thing about this is it costs nothing to do but that is not what the powers that be want.
In terms then of managing the land it pains me to say it as I come from a farming background but I would not allow sheep on the ground. They are honestly like a lawnmower and they would hoover up every sapling in the area, sure if you are planting trees you can add in the plastic bases etc. but what happens then with all the plastic waste left over after the trees have out grown these? That is entirely counter productive imo.
Besides sheep farming on mountains only really happened from the 1700s on once these mountains where cleared of trees. This landscape needs to be allowed to return to forest in order to make things right. I seen an article from Scotland which was pretty scary which stated that due to [peat](https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/climate-change-scotlands-drinking-water-at-risk-as-peatlands-degrade-dr-richard-dixon-3393049) degradation in the highlands of scotland large volumes of peat were entering rivers and lochs and therefore entering the drinking water system of the country. The carbon in the peat was reacting with the chlorine in the water and creating chemicals known as trihalomethanes. Chloroform is the one you will of heard of and some of these compounds are classified as possible carcinogens – the water which they are drinking will literally kill you. Ireland will be no different to this and this needs to be changed, for the good of our health it can’t be allowed to go on any longer and urgent action needs to be carried out.
As for deer…. they are a different story altogether. Drastic action needs to be taken to control these. In fact the common species are not even native to Ireland. The only herd that can be argued to be native to ireland is the red deer herd in killarney national park.. but that is a story for an other day. But the grazing pressure deer have on the countryside is absolutely phenomenal and this will need to be sorted if we are to have any sort of successful rewilding and tree planting strategy on this island.
I don’t see the point in farmers struggling to “maintain” “unviable” land to try and take one cut of silage off it a year, tear the fuck out of it with heavy machinery and then tramp the hell out of it with heavy continental cattle.
All this is doing is wrecking soil and causing hardship. My solution for this would be to have rare breed grants and benefits from the government and the meat factories. Farmers farmed dexter cows, moilies and droimeann cows in ireland for centuries and they never caused the same harm which this heavy industrial type of cows caused in Ireland since the 60s.
Have grants and benefits that allowed farmers to get fair pay for these animals as if they were to be keeping the same number of stock with heavier cows and get the same money in markets and in factory bonuses. We have already seen this were meat factories where giving bonuses for the likes of Aberdeen Angus beef or what ever the craze was every few years in terms of meat restaurants and shops where looking. Allow farmers to get a benefit from farming traditional breeds and meats which would also help the environment.
I know for a fact I would pay a premium at a restaurant if I was to have the option to buy a steak from an animal reared in this fashion. Cows can play an important role within an ecosystem – the fact that they eat by wrapping their tongue around grass means that they leave a substantial amount of grass behind them which can help trees to grow and rare plants to succeed in growing in these areas. Also if this marginal land has to be stocked at a lower rate than what it currently is in order to allow these benefits to happen farmers should 150% be compensated and they should be allowed to see the benefits of this farming with nature.
On top of this it is vitaly – vitaly – vitaly important that we bring farmers along on this journey and that they are informed 100% on what is going to happen and why it is important. I think farmers can be painted as a villain here and I think because I’m from this background but have a knowledge of the environmental side of things that I am extra hard on them because to me it is so simple to implement these ideas and can see how it goes.
But at end of the day we are messing with people’s families and livelihoods here. Land has been central to the Irish mans existence ever since the days of St. Patrick, look at the Cattle Raid of Cooley etc. it is engrained in our psyche that land and farming is central to the existence of rural Ireland. Right through the land grabs by the English, the land wars of the 1800s, the attempt to get the land again following the war of independence. Take “The Field” for instance, the film (and book) is a cultural icon of Irish Cinema and literature and I think one which every parish in Ireland can relate to, look at the unfortunate happenings in Munster over the past 2 years. This isn’t something which can be confined to the history books land problems in Ireland will never ever go away and it is important that farmers are fully aware of why this work has to be done and they are fairly looked after – public money for public goods.
It has been ingrained in farmers that they need to get money from the land they have, whether it be through grazing it, working it, bettering it – no farmer wants to be seen with land growing wild (they will be the talk of the parish!) but we need total buy in from farmers to these schemes. We are always going to get pull back from intense dairy / beef farmers etc and I can honestly see why. They have been told for years to expand and expand. If you are farming 80 cows, grow this to 120. 200 cows? Sure you could increase this to 350. It was after all [dairy](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/agribusiness-and-food/ireland-reaping-the-rewards-as-agri-food-industry-keeps-growing-1.505099) which helped to pull Ireland out of the recession in the early 2010s and we can’t expect them to turn around and turn half their farms into forest again. But there are opportunities everywhere… For instance keeping hedgerows instead of the New Zealand style paddocks which have come into Ireland in style since the last 10 years or more. Hedgerows provide shelter for livestock and also wildlife corridors and are highly dense at storing carbon, farmers have been trying to push a myth that they do in fact “manage hedgerows” and are environmentally helpful but this couldn’t be further from the truth and this narrative needs to be challenged and implemented fully.
Further to this. Farming organisations need to be briefed and farmers actively taught and shown how damaging their activities are, de-vegetation, land drainage, letting fertilisers go to watercourses have repercussions and they need to be shown why and how. And I believe that if this is shown properly they will be more sparing on fertiliser usage. Fertiliser will be dear enough as it is this season and surely being shown and taught about why it is bad to let it go to the rivers which will also have financial help for them as they will not be actually “washing their money away” which will have environmental and economic benefits from them. Again farmers claim to be the devils advocate for this. They claim industrial run off, water board failures as having more of an impact on the water courses but the bottom line is there has been a correlation between dairy and beef expansion and water quality degradation for over 10 years and this needs to be properly taught and shown to farmers.
The day of farmers doing something because that’s how their dad, and their granda done it are long long gone and if farming is looking to survive into the next generation we need this buy in to happen, not only for us but for their own benefit
What is this article… it’s a jumble of quotes that are loosely related to trees from different topics… I don’t know about this DAFM grant but The grant for farmers has already existed for at least a decade.
GPC 9 and 10 of coilte forestry grant scheme grants a higher grant for native woodland for 15 years but even then it’s not alot of money. After the 15 yearsfarmer is stuck with it, they can never use that land for anything else, even “unviable land” will produce more for the livelihoods of these farmers than .
I’m the first to advocate for increasing irelands woodland but i do hate armchair enviromentalists villainising farmers, that often jumps up on reddit. You’re essentially asking someone to turn their source of income into a useless resource, even if it is “unviable land”, it will produce more for them as farmland than planting it.
My parents have a farm and they’ve maintained the native woodland on it but to be honest my parents are very wealthy from their non farming careers and can afford to do that and even then it’s still just a fraction of the farm. they are the exception, most farmer can’t afford the luxury of native woodland.
The only way we are reliably increasing native woodland in Ireland is funding non-profit orgaistaion dedicated to increasing irish woodland and the gorverment actively buying land to be used to for that purpose.
​
Expecting farmers to suddenly do it all is naiviety.
9 comments
That would be amazing. The coniferous forests they are planting all over the place do nothing for biodiversity and only seem to produce wasteland below them
This is a genuinely good idea. Is it opposite day?!
It’s a great idea, but it’ll require a fair bit of funding. I’ve worked in the forestry sector, and sadly there is no financial reason for farmers to plant native braodleaf trees, which typically require better land. It’s a lot more profitable to plant sitka on wetland used by migratory birds. Fact is, they take too long to grow compared to non native conifers, if a farmer is looking for is a pension investment.
If this is properly funded, we could plant a temperate rainforest all along the west coast in the next two decades, but no farmer is going to take a financial hit without the grants
We need trees.
I like this idea.
I thought this was already a thing way back in 2014. Maybe the scheme ended.
Can somebody please tell me why Irish farmers look at trees so differently then they do at any other crop ? Usually Sitka Spruce only gets planted on the worst part of the farm and then they complain about how slow they grow … now the plan is to plant indigenous trees where the companies won’t even plant sitka ? And we will expect them to flourish ?
We should use the best part of the farm to grow the most valuable crop, we import most of the valuable timber while we have the perfect climate and soils to grow them here … we could so easily become an exporter of valuable timber and deal with the carbon crisis …
Yet we keep exporting heavily subsidised meat and dairy so we out compete farmers in other parts of the planet …
Think we have to rethink the whole system rather then tinker around the edges with these Mickley mouse schemes to make ourselves feel like we are doing something …
public money for public goods.
on top of being a so called carbon sink, they also help to stabilise ground, slow run off from storms reducing flooding and offer important habitats to native animals.
There is no shortage of land in the country that is too marginal to farm intensely. I honestly don’t see how it can’t be too big of a job to let this ground grow wild. We don’t even need to plant trees. That isn’t the best either but we can allow natural regeneration to take over – particularly when there are native trees close by – let nature take care of it. All we need to do is control our own inputs – don’t drain it or actively actively work it. reduce stocking rates and allow nature to take its course. It is crazy how quick nature can return when this is allowed to happen.
Then we will actually have a proper habitat on our hands, nothing in nature is uniform and there is nothing natural about having acres upon acres of similar ages of trees with an even tree canopy. A natural forest has gaps in the canopy at different times of the year with different species thriving at different times it has old trees that have been knocked over with an array of creepy crawlies and fungi etc growing out of them which become important micro habitats in themselves, not to mention the flowers that bloom in the spring before certain trees close over.
The only thing about this is it costs nothing to do but that is not what the powers that be want.
In terms then of managing the land it pains me to say it as I come from a farming background but I would not allow sheep on the ground. They are honestly like a lawnmower and they would hoover up every sapling in the area, sure if you are planting trees you can add in the plastic bases etc. but what happens then with all the plastic waste left over after the trees have out grown these? That is entirely counter productive imo.
Besides sheep farming on mountains only really happened from the 1700s on once these mountains where cleared of trees. This landscape needs to be allowed to return to forest in order to make things right. I seen an article from Scotland which was pretty scary which stated that due to [peat](https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/climate-change-scotlands-drinking-water-at-risk-as-peatlands-degrade-dr-richard-dixon-3393049) degradation in the highlands of scotland large volumes of peat were entering rivers and lochs and therefore entering the drinking water system of the country. The carbon in the peat was reacting with the chlorine in the water and creating chemicals known as trihalomethanes. Chloroform is the one you will of heard of and some of these compounds are classified as possible carcinogens – the water which they are drinking will literally kill you. Ireland will be no different to this and this needs to be changed, for the good of our health it can’t be allowed to go on any longer and urgent action needs to be carried out.
As for deer…. they are a different story altogether. Drastic action needs to be taken to control these. In fact the common species are not even native to Ireland. The only herd that can be argued to be native to ireland is the red deer herd in killarney national park.. but that is a story for an other day. But the grazing pressure deer have on the countryside is absolutely phenomenal and this will need to be sorted if we are to have any sort of successful rewilding and tree planting strategy on this island.
I don’t see the point in farmers struggling to “maintain” “unviable” land to try and take one cut of silage off it a year, tear the fuck out of it with heavy machinery and then tramp the hell out of it with heavy continental cattle.
All this is doing is wrecking soil and causing hardship. My solution for this would be to have rare breed grants and benefits from the government and the meat factories. Farmers farmed dexter cows, moilies and droimeann cows in ireland for centuries and they never caused the same harm which this heavy industrial type of cows caused in Ireland since the 60s.
Have grants and benefits that allowed farmers to get fair pay for these animals as if they were to be keeping the same number of stock with heavier cows and get the same money in markets and in factory bonuses. We have already seen this were meat factories where giving bonuses for the likes of Aberdeen Angus beef or what ever the craze was every few years in terms of meat restaurants and shops where looking. Allow farmers to get a benefit from farming traditional breeds and meats which would also help the environment.
I know for a fact I would pay a premium at a restaurant if I was to have the option to buy a steak from an animal reared in this fashion. Cows can play an important role within an ecosystem – the fact that they eat by wrapping their tongue around grass means that they leave a substantial amount of grass behind them which can help trees to grow and rare plants to succeed in growing in these areas. Also if this marginal land has to be stocked at a lower rate than what it currently is in order to allow these benefits to happen farmers should 150% be compensated and they should be allowed to see the benefits of this farming with nature.
On top of this it is vitaly – vitaly – vitaly important that we bring farmers along on this journey and that they are informed 100% on what is going to happen and why it is important. I think farmers can be painted as a villain here and I think because I’m from this background but have a knowledge of the environmental side of things that I am extra hard on them because to me it is so simple to implement these ideas and can see how it goes.
But at end of the day we are messing with people’s families and livelihoods here. Land has been central to the Irish mans existence ever since the days of St. Patrick, look at the Cattle Raid of Cooley etc. it is engrained in our psyche that land and farming is central to the existence of rural Ireland. Right through the land grabs by the English, the land wars of the 1800s, the attempt to get the land again following the war of independence. Take “The Field” for instance, the film (and book) is a cultural icon of Irish Cinema and literature and I think one which every parish in Ireland can relate to, look at the unfortunate happenings in Munster over the past 2 years. This isn’t something which can be confined to the history books land problems in Ireland will never ever go away and it is important that farmers are fully aware of why this work has to be done and they are fairly looked after – public money for public goods.
It has been ingrained in farmers that they need to get money from the land they have, whether it be through grazing it, working it, bettering it – no farmer wants to be seen with land growing wild (they will be the talk of the parish!) but we need total buy in from farmers to these schemes. We are always going to get pull back from intense dairy / beef farmers etc and I can honestly see why. They have been told for years to expand and expand. If you are farming 80 cows, grow this to 120. 200 cows? Sure you could increase this to 350. It was after all [dairy](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/agribusiness-and-food/ireland-reaping-the-rewards-as-agri-food-industry-keeps-growing-1.505099) which helped to pull Ireland out of the recession in the early 2010s and we can’t expect them to turn around and turn half their farms into forest again. But there are opportunities everywhere… For instance keeping hedgerows instead of the New Zealand style paddocks which have come into Ireland in style since the last 10 years or more. Hedgerows provide shelter for livestock and also wildlife corridors and are highly dense at storing carbon, farmers have been trying to push a myth that they do in fact “manage hedgerows” and are environmentally helpful but this couldn’t be further from the truth and this narrative needs to be challenged and implemented fully.
Further to this. Farming organisations need to be briefed and farmers actively taught and shown how damaging their activities are, de-vegetation, land drainage, letting fertilisers go to watercourses have repercussions and they need to be shown why and how. And I believe that if this is shown properly they will be more sparing on fertiliser usage. Fertiliser will be dear enough as it is this season and surely being shown and taught about why it is bad to let it go to the rivers which will also have financial help for them as they will not be actually “washing their money away” which will have environmental and economic benefits from them. Again farmers claim to be the devils advocate for this. They claim industrial run off, water board failures as having more of an impact on the water courses but the bottom line is there has been a correlation between dairy and beef expansion and water quality degradation for over 10 years and this needs to be properly taught and shown to farmers.
The day of farmers doing something because that’s how their dad, and their granda done it are long long gone and if farming is looking to survive into the next generation we need this buy in to happen, not only for us but for their own benefit
What is this article… it’s a jumble of quotes that are loosely related to trees from different topics… I don’t know about this DAFM grant but The grant for farmers has already existed for at least a decade.
GPC 9 and 10 of coilte forestry grant scheme grants a higher grant for native woodland for 15 years but even then it’s not alot of money. After the 15 yearsfarmer is stuck with it, they can never use that land for anything else, even “unviable land” will produce more for the livelihoods of these farmers than .
I’m the first to advocate for increasing irelands woodland but i do hate armchair enviromentalists villainising farmers, that often jumps up on reddit. You’re essentially asking someone to turn their source of income into a useless resource, even if it is “unviable land”, it will produce more for them as farmland than planting it.
My parents have a farm and they’ve maintained the native woodland on it but to be honest my parents are very wealthy from their non farming careers and can afford to do that and even then it’s still just a fraction of the farm. they are the exception, most farmer can’t afford the luxury of native woodland.
The only way we are reliably increasing native woodland in Ireland is funding non-profit orgaistaion dedicated to increasing irish woodland and the gorverment actively buying land to be used to for that purpose.
​
Expecting farmers to suddenly do it all is naiviety.