The country has a million acres of land which are producing damn all from regular farming, Minister Ivan Yates is reported as saying in Portlaoise. He rejected suggestions that farmers who planted trees were, in a way, farming failures. As if growing trees wasn't farming, too. But he said the obvious when he drew the attention of farmers to the prospect (should he have said the certainty?) of falling returns from milk and beef over the next 20 years.
He doesn't want to see wall to wall forestry imposed, but reminds us all that we have the lowest level of planting in Europe. We are not alone. Britain is only 25 per cent self sufficient in soft wood (a market for us?). This address in Portlaoise follows his major speech on the £3 billion plan for the development of forestry by doubling the acreage over the next forty or so years. That is, from the present 570,000 hectares to 1.2 million hectares. (Can one say hectarage?)
And with a major emphasis on private sector afforestation. Irish farmers are crucial to the success of the plan. They will have grants and premium supports and revenue from timber sales even at the thinning stage. The Minister sees an eventual increase in employment of 11,000, as well as a significant asset and income option at a time of change in the agricultural picture. Also, increased economic activity around such a development.
It is said that the most successful farmers are those who most love their animals, and appreciate them and do their best to look after them. Trees are in animate creatures, but it would be fair to say that there are still people on this island who find trees a nuisance, know nothing of the qualities of one as compared to the other, and so often, on acquiring an extra piece of land, are disposed to get rid of trees here and there.
Yes, if the trees are planted too close to your house you will find it claustrophobic. Steps are now being taken to make more space around future planting. Forests, in some definitions, are places where trees alternate with large open spaces such as pasture. And as to all the groans about too many conifers, a letter in the English Field recently took the part of the "nationally vital softwood industry" being put at risk by questionable emphasis on hard woods. (We in Ireland are going to reduce sitka spruce to 60 per cent of annual afforestation, with other conifers 20 per cent and hardwoods 20 per cent).
The writer asked the British Forestry Commission to assume, overtly, the long term duty of rehabilitating the conifer in the eyes of the public. "Unless the balance is corrected, we are heading for an emasculated industry and some of the most expensive firewood in the world."