So remove the tenant, recieve no more income than previously and take on the obligation for GAEC.
How does anyone get a payment "without any obligation or upkeep to the farm"
Buccleuch in a spot of bother
- Thread starter glasshouse
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So remove the tenant, recieve no more income than previously and take on the obligation for GAEC.
How does anyone get a payment "without any obligation or upkeep to the farm"
I was speaking to a forestry adviser the other week and he was saying they are really pushing the fact now that if you plant commercial forestry, they will garuntee you keep your entitlements as Agri ground and qualify for your basic area payment for at least 16 years! I.e. The better ground you plant theroretically the more they will pay you! Like has been said many times on this thread, there is a place for more trees, but planting decent farming ground is not it. You only have to look at a heap of the old plantings coming to maturity now, they have never bothered thinking them as you will hardly break even off first thinings so in a lot of cases they dont bother then just come in and clear fell.
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
Exactly, all out logs could be imported from nz cheaper.
They are way ahead of us and are flailing off forests and putting them back to grass.
Forestry should be done small scale in a farming environment, not sweeping the farmers and community away
Since it is probably the biggest change which has been made in forestry support for many years and completely changes the cashflow landscape you are hopefully not surprised that it is being pushed. There is one error in the statement above - it applies to all forestry not merely commercial forestry
Both Forestry support and BPS are at fixed rates per hectare, obviously BPS can vary according to land type but only to the degree provided by regulation.
I think the fact that government will allow you to retain your agricultural payments for a period would indicate that not everyone agrees with that.
First extraction normally requires major investment in the form of roads and loading areas. There was not much of a market for small roundwood 20 years ago hence thinnings were pretty uneconomic.
Since it is probably the biggest change which has been made in forestry support for many years and completely changes the cashflow landscape you are hopefully not surprised that it is being pushed. There is one error in the statement above - it applies to all forestry not merely commercial forestry
Both Forestry support and BPS are at fixed rates per hectare, obviously BPS can vary according to land type but only to the degree provided by regulation.
I think the fact that government will allow you to retain your agricultural payments for a period would indicate that not everyone agrees with that.
First extraction normally requires major investment in the form of roads and loading areas. There was not much of a market for small roundwood 20 years ago hence thinnings were pretty uneconomic.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Exactly.
Even though I absolutely love trees they have a place = where everything else is marginal
Anything perennial sinks carbon it doesn't have to be fecking trees from one side of the island to the other to do that - logging esp. clearfell logging is hardly good for the environment.
You can tell how far ahead of their noses these muppets can see - 5 years.
Then what?
Oh, too broke to prune them and thin them now, we'll just grow trees for pulp....
Moronic.
That's were a lot of forests fail,
that's the time when the ditch and drain maintenance teams should move in, but they don't 
KMA
Member
- Location
- Dumfriesshire
We had a 'discussion with a borough council in London who wanted to put a tree right in front of one of our properties, right up until we asked them about their plans for maintaining it i.e. pruning, clearing up leafs, subsidence and roots undermining buildings and disrupting the services which ran right under where they were going to plant it " ooh we have a a maintenance contracted out" "oh aye, for how long" "oh for two years" we aren't getting a tree but a lot of other trees have been planted up and down the high street 
Dealing with urban councils is quite an eye opener as to how generally ignorant and clueless urbanites are.
we aren't getting a tree but a lot of other trees have been planted up and down the high street Dealing with urban councils is quite an eye opener as to how generally ignorant and clueless urbanites are.NZ may be ahead of us in many things but the forestry industry is not one of them, the safety record in NZ is very poor. Pinus Radiata in NZ is just another example of folks piling into the next great hope.
There is no EU import tariff on roundwood and tariffs on finished products are in the region of 3-7%, so no barrier to importing logs.
Exactly where are the farmers and communities being swept away by forestry? I live in the most afforested part of the UK and this is news to me.
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So each harvester takes out a farm a year or 25 farming families livelihoods over the 25 year crop cycle sounds pretty rapid route to dopulating a remote rural community.More utter nonsense, 1 harvester will be lucky to harvest 5 acres of trees per week on average, so there's 260 acres a year
We got a similar thing in this part of world with landlords seeking to lose farmers in favour of environmental/rewinding on more marginal farmland. Change without due consideration to socio-economic impact.....going to be an increasing problem if subsidies allowed to focus away from farming and into alternative directions.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Thanks for the vote of confidence... I think?
I think we were the first to realise the mistake of piling into radiata and fast growing gum species, although oregon/d.fir held its value ok.
But some imagination was required and real thought - which never really eventuated?
I think "we" were about at a similar stage to "you" in that there was quiet desperation involved in much of the decision-making processes. Definitely in the actual planning of area allocation to forestry.
Nothing wrong with cold dark faces and gullies full of trees but folk do need to know when to stop - although it would slow the oversupply issue and raise demand for the ones fortunate enough to hang onto their livestock and arable operations.
Forestry can be so good, if well planned.
But (and here's the rub with all enterprise IMO) We cannot solve our problems with the same type of thinking we used to create the problems - in my opinion this is broken down into:
Chasing the grant money
Putting all the eggs into one basket
Monoculture
Plant the whole area at one time to "make it economic to harvest"
Double subsidy: area payments AND grants.
They could look to the negatives of our not so successful moments in history as well.
I can see why @glasshouse holds our perpetual leasing system in such high regard though.
http://www.highcountryaccord.co.nz/index.php?page=18
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
Its not just urbanites who are clueless.We had a 'discussion with a borough council in London who wanted to put a tree right in front of one of our properties, right up until we asked them about their plans for maintaining it i.e. pruning, clearing up leafs, subsidence and roots undermining buildings and disrupting the services which ran right under where they were going to plant it " ooh we have a a maintenance contracted out" "oh aye, for how long" "oh for two years"
Estate factors take the prize for stupidity when they take a strip along the bottom of a field to plant trees.
They forget that the drains all run through there, especially the main, but heyho, by the time the rest of the field turns to a swamp they have got their money and are long gone.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
You should really open your eyes and see what a lot of these derelict hill farms are like after the tenants have been removed.
You will also find by removing the tenant and the landlord claiming the 'sub the landlords income increases substantially.
Actually I think we are at very different stages - in order to establish a new woodland in Scotland we need to go through a statutory consultation process whereby any interested party has to be notified of the intention and given the opportunity to comment - there are a number of environmental no-nos such as planting on deep peat.
In addition we have an ongoing demand for timber in the UK which we cannot satisfy and currently import about 80% of our consumption, in addition we have existing mill infrastructure which is going to struggle for sufficient feedstock in coming years.
If I understand correctly the intended target for radiata was chip to japan - bulk commodity going into a depressed economy.
Nobody plants trees where they can get a better return doing something else mate, equally there is no point in trying to grow commercial bonsai - hence the gradual ramping up of incentives to meet targets which we are missing by miles. Planting trees is an up front bet where the result is not known for 30-40 years, as soon as you start planting you knock the capital value of the land for six and it is almost impossible to reverse.
Its quite ironic that some farmers are complaining that they cannot make a return on farming while others are complaining about marginal land being taken out of agricultural production and turned over to an alternative use.
Your comments on monoculture and large scale harvesting are valid and are addressed in current UK Forestry Standards
Glasshouse, if you'd been born with his silver spoon in your mouth (and him with your chipped wooden one), do you honestly think you'd have done anything different?
(It's a rhetorical question, for all you'll bump your gums saying 'no', you'd be the first to say 'get off of my land').
If I heard right this morning, our 'esteemed leader' in Holyrood is giving the duke and his like £6,800 a hectare in planting grants, and £200 a hectare every year to 'manage'
the plantations, with extra money available for deer fencing. And forestry schemes are tax free...Will they still be able to claim the SFP too, as the cherry on top?
I wonder if it's being paid out of the same EU pot that our EU 'Modulation' gets paid into?
The same pot that pays out £320 Ha under AECS for 'wild bird food', while DEFRA pays out £640 for a similar scheme in England?
And so much the SNP's much praised 'Universalism', taxing 'the poor' so that they can pay for the Dukes kids to go to St Andrews University FoC
FFS, first ScotGov fudge up land reform, and then they dangle a golden carrot in front of the land owners. You'd have to think that if Sturgeon was actively trying to recreate the highland clearances, she wouldn't have to do anything different. Thatchers heir: Nicola, the Tartan Tory!
"SAOR ALBA!" yer erse.
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If I heard right this morning, our 'esteemed leader' in Holyrood is giving the duke and his like £6,800 a hectare in planting grants, and £200 a hectare every year to 'manage'
Will they still be able to claim the SFP too, as the cherry on top?
"SAOR ALBA!" yer erse.
Well you may not have misheard but if you didn't its a sad case of misrepresentation I think - that level of funding is just about available - up to a maximum of three hectares in the Western Isles and NW Scotland - the figure quoted includes 5 years management payments - they are not additional and yes capital payment grants may be available.
Where do you get the idea that forestry schemes are tax free?
Yes you can claim the SFP
In order to get that level of funding you will need to win a competitive process and as a minor point have 3000 stems per hectare alive at year 5 - so don't go spending the profits just yet
https://www.ruralpayments.org/publi...on/native-broadleaves-northern-western-isles/
Thats entirely correct but the tax breaks do not to the best of my knowledge include income from forestry support - that will go in as income just the same as any other. It will only really be applicable to part of the 5 yr annual payment and the BPS since the ground preparation and planting cost will see the initial payment spent.
And just to round the matter off - you cannot claim any tax relief on forestry related expenditure
You should also be aware that there is an upper limit to the rates you posted as well - once you get past 300Ha (I wish) they drop again.
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- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Yes quite correct in that Japan was the original destination for much of the radiata, and framing timber from the best of it and the douglas fir.
Interesting what you say about the monoculture issue being addressed in legislation already, whats the minimum number of species needed to be planted together in order to be allowed?