Fianna Fáil Senator Paul Daly has queried if Ireland's current forestry targets need to be re-evaluated.

The senator shone a spotlight on the high demand for land from competing interests - including wind and solar - at a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food yesterday (Wednesday, April 22).

Barry Delany, director of Forestry, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, told senators and TDs that a "new farmer definition" will help to make forestry "a more attractive land use option for farmers and reduce the red tape for anyone who is taking over a forestry contract".

But Senator Daly has questioned if current targets line up with reality, particularly in relation to targets, "18% of the land mass of Ireland".

He asked Delany if he would "envisage any need to re-evaluate that figure and try and correlate it with available land?"

“Because the amount of land available for potential planting is getting smaller, whereas the amount of land in the country doesn't change," the senator added.

He also highlighted competition for land for projects such as solar and wind projects, before asking the senior DAFM official if he thought "that figure is going to be achievable, in the long run, given all the constraints and the changes?”

Delany said that achieving the 18% figure will be "very challenging" and noted the competing factors in terms of productive agricultural land such as wind and solar power and long-term leases.

He added: “But we have a forest opportunities map, which we can overlay in terms of available land."

"And I think it feeds back into what my colleague Dr. (Robert) Mooney had mentioned, in terms of being very proactive in engaging, and this is why there's five years' additional premium for farmers, in terms of meeting our targets here.

“It's encouraging every farmer and land owner to utilise the attractive schemes that we have here, to plant on their own land, and that they see that as something that's positive and useful, and feeds into their land.

“So, if you are a bee farmer, that you can plant a native tree area scheme in the corner of off a field, if you're a dairy farmer to help in terms of water quality, you can plant a riparian strip.”

Delany also told the Oireachtas agricultural committee that the Forestry Programme “contains its own bespoke farmer definition because, under current Afforestation Scheme rules, farmers are entitled to 20 years of premium payments following the planting of their forests compared to 15 years for non-farmers”.

Commercial forestation

Senator Daly went on to query whether there would be sufficient timber for commercial use in the long-term.

He said: “The emphasis, from what I can see, at the moment, is more on leisure forestry, native trees, riparian, as you say, agri-forestry, which is not commercial. Will we have the timber, in 30 years’ time?”

Delany replied: “At the moment, the forestry state is over 800,000ha. Of that, about 70% is commercial forestation.

"So anything that's harvested this year is replanted and we'll come back and then anything we plant year-on-year is additional to that. We need more of both.

“At the moment, senator, about 40% of the planting is native planting, and about 35% is commercial afforestation.”