toquark
Member
For the same reasons we need steel and food. Timber provides shelter, heat and energy.
When timber security was also a thing
- Thread starter JP1
- Start date
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
I sort of agree but well down the pecking order imo these days , the government are not interested in nat security at all so id be buggerd if i plant my land in the name of it.
farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
For bows and arrows to fire at the russians as we don't have a steel industry any more.
toquark
Member
No probably not, but there are clear fells and clear fells. A 1 acre shelterbelt in the middle of a field is unlikely to yield particularly well and will be expensive to harvest and extract.
I once had a client (farmer) moan to me that his recent clearfell hardly made a profit. The job was horrible, it had been badly managed and he’d let cattle through it, then it all blew down. After listening to a diatribe about the ills of planting trees, I asked him if he waited for his livestock to die before he took them to market, because that’s effectively what he’d done with his timber.
toquark
Member
Nobody’s asking you to. Setting aside the national security reasons (we as individuals should not care a jot about - that’s the governments job), there are sound economic reasons to plant.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
I really struggle to see this. You couldn't make a living off a commercial plantation like you can off a farm... If you could, then we would all be doing it - and more importantly the govt wouldn't be paying huge grants to put trees in.
Trees may pay well on the clearance, (I've heard the contrary) but that's a long time to wait with no return.
The farm I'm on can keep me and pay the way with sheep but it sure as hell wouldn't keep me here with trees.
There is no balance.
£8400 an acre to plant the Central Belt is stupidity of the highest order.
I have no objections to planting poor/marginal ground. But as I type this I've just watched 300 acres of quality upland grass be planted. I know of another 7-800 acres arable and lowland ground due to be planted a stones throw from.ke here and the hillfarm next door to me is earmarked to potentially be planted (the peat moor can't be planted anymore, but it's the only part worth planting) thats another 1000acres of good grass. A farm that if given the chance could be very productive (was in the past!)...
Land should be interspersed with blocks/strips of woodland and the absolute poorest areas blanket planted. But this drive to plant 45,000acres every year on all ground types is totally wrong
toquark
Member
It’s a different income profile certainly, it’s a 30-35 year return which is why it wouldn’t work for you at farm scale. But acre for acre on marginal land, a timber crop will definitely pay more. You just have to wait for them.
I do accept that commercial forestry inherently suits larger landowners who can afford to buy or allocate hundreds or thousands of acres for forestry and are prepared to wait for the return. However I work with plenty farmers doing it at a smaller scale and making it work.
Everybody’s definition of marginal is different. I’ve planted some grade 4 grass which in its day would’ve yielded spring barley & oats or a half decent silage/hay crop. The trouble was it had been farmed to death, fences all knackered, ph though the floor, badly needing drained, ploughed and reseeded. The reason the guy planted it was that the cost per acre to get it farmable again didn’t stack up against its agricultural potential. The return on which would have been close to zero.
Many critics of forestry point to grants etc (which have been cut by 40%) conveniently forget two major drivers of planting:
1) Demographics. Many hill guys don't have another generation to follow on. Off hand I can think of many clients in this position. New entrants have very few opportunities to get into the game too sadly.
2) Poor farm returns. This is a long term problem, particularly in the hills where farm infrastructure dwindles past the point of no return, and the only off ramp for those owners is to sell to forestry.
Make no mistake, I don’t revel in any of the above, it’s just the reality as I see it, I don’t think forestry is the evil many think it is. It’s not the driver per se, more a response to a changing farming sector.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
That isn't farmed to death. That is recklessly neglected land - something recent generations have been very guilty of. Most common with large estates (I could list off many who have wrecked their own assets) - funny how the tenanted, or family farmed/ran, land tends to be in best keep...
There are plenty young people desperate to get a go in farming. Land prices and no tenancies make this an impossible situation. Land owners simply do not want the responsibilities/liabilities which go with tenants.
The decline of tenancies has been going on since the 60's at least and is nothing new, certainly is not all at the foot of the land reform act 2003 as many would like to blame.
The hill farms which are still operating are doing pretty well for themselves.
We were taught about The Clarences at school - looking back to the second half of the 1700's... well the reality is it has never stopped and won't stop until there's nobody left.
This is going to be another case of not knowing what you've got until it's gone.
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
The constant hill farming bashing is getting on my wick now !! Ive a mate with a hill farm sells 3000 lambs and 150ks worth of rams per year and its that hard a hill i doubt they even want to plant tree on it and if they did they wouldnt make anywhere near what the sheep make , these pro tree trees on hill farm brigade talk sh!t to get their own way they really do … large commercial forestry is just for millionaires tax dodge its fek all to with making money and everything to with avoiding taxes …. Meanwhile the sheep cattle men pay tax each year and contribute an awful lot more to everything over trees. .
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Hill farming is the greenest, most 'eco' friendly carbon capturing regenerative activity in the world. It beats everything - including trees! - hands down.
It is the jewel in the crown and people are too stupid they can't see it
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
I think alot of it jealousy , they cant have it so plant it with trees …. Wheat is £150 dose not pay so lets plant some inbye ground lets face it most it has been raped of nutrients for decades anyway a rest under trees for generation or 4 will will do it the power of good . !!
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Not sure it's jealousy.
To me it's cowardly. Admission they've failed to be successful, whilst being ignorant and greedy enough to not sell the land or let the place out (usually because their failure has wrecked it so badly) to someone who could make a go of it - showing their failure.
General consensus in this area is the govt will be paying to rip these trees out within our lifetime.
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
And their kids / Grand kids go through the local primary and secondary school and all that
If you plant crops yearly you can change, make choices yearly, if you commit, that same land to say grape vines, christmas trees, trees, solar panels, that land is then tied up for a long time? With a lot of investment, labour time involved before any payback, in the cases of chritmas trees and vines?
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
nails
Member
- Location
- East Dorset
I suppose not so many years ago the open rolling hills and moorland of the north would have been covered in forest. The rise of sheep led to the reduction of forest . Sheep are reasonably profitable atm but maybe there should be more plantations of native trees in the hills. The fact is that wherever man goes the ancient forests disappear.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
They disappeared to make boats. About 2000 oak trees to built a single warship.
HMS Victory used 5,500 Oak trees.
Jasper
Member
A few weeks ago you put up some pictures taken up in the hills around your farm . I couldn’t believe how good it looked and how well farmed the fields were they are a real credit to you if land like this is being planted with trees it’s a wicked sin
Expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive offer for farmers published
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From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Sir Mark Spencer MP Published21 May 2024
Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the...
From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Sir Mark Spencer MP Published21 May 2024
Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the...