England Woodland Creation Offer from the Forestry Commission

[MartinLines]

Funding for trees and natural regeneration of woodland.

England Woodland Creation Offer

Get support to create woodland using the England Woodland Creation Offer (EWCO).

www.gov.uk

 

[steveR]

Caveat Emptor??

 

[teslacoils]

After fwgs etc.....

Not
A
Fudging
Chance

 

[steveR]

After fwgs etc.....

Not
A
Fudging
Chance

Severn Trent Water were attempting to push a tree planting scheme that I said I would decline unless I got a total payment/ha that met the value of the land being sterilised. Say £30K/ha... + management costs for 5-10 years.

I didn't sign up....

 

[Rossymons]

We looked at it including the option of selling the carbon credits.

You get decent money up front to plant the trees but that money has to be spent on planting the trees. So no gain there.

There is the maintenance grant for 10 years plus the carbon credits which can be traded. You have to be verified for creating the credits, the credits have to be validated and can only be traded every 5 years.

You can't cut down the trees for any extra income.

My fag packet maths came in at less £100/acre across the first 10 years after which you lose the management grant.

Given I can rent it out or farm it myself and make more money from it as well as keeping it farm land and not growing someone elses tree's we pulled the plug on the 20 acres planned.

 

[steveR]

We looked at it including the option of selling the carbon credits.

You get decent money up front to plant the trees but that money has to be spent on planting the trees. So no gain there.

There is the maintenance grant for 10 years plus the carbon credits which can be traded. You have to be verified for creating the credits, the credits have to be validated and can only be traded every 5 years.

You can't cut down the trees for any extra income.

My fag packet maths came in at less £100/acre across the first 10 years after which you lose the management grant.

Given I can rent it out or farm it myself and make more money from it as well as keeping it farm land and not growing someone elses tree's we pulled the plug on the 20 acres planned.

Thank you for the calcs, I really CBA to dig them out, but are dreadful if you are right, and even if you double or trebled the money, it is still dire!

What sort of figure did you think might be achievable with carbon credits?

WTH would anyone sign on for this piece of crock???

 

[steveR]

Who is the OP author, @Base Farmer Martin??

 

[Rossymons]

Thank you for the calcs, I really CBA to dig them out, but are dreadful if you are right, and even if you double or trebled the money, it is still dire!

What sort of figure did you think might be achievable with carbon credits?

WTH would anyone sign on for this piece of crock???

I put them at £20 a unit but the price has sharply increased lately. But you can only sell them in a 5 year cycle so theres no chance I could cash them in at today's price. The woods need to adhere to the carbon code, the credits need to be verified that they've been made and validated for me to sell. All of which costs money.

As it's for new woodland only the mature 25 acres I already have count for nothing.

The 20 acres planned for the new woodland was 10 acres of steep, gorse and bramble land plus 10 acres of not brilliant but perfectly serviceable farm land. The Forestry Commission chap didnt want the rubbish bit as that was deemed too environmentally rich as it is but would happily have the farmland.

I begged to differ!

 

[Bongodog]

Follow the link and the 1st case study is the University Of Cambridge, such a wonderful green organisation who are concreting over farmland as fast as they can gain planning permission. The economics don't need to add up for them, the tree planting is just a greenwashing exercise to divert attention from their placing hundreds of acres under concrete in the past decade.

 

[MartinLines]

Who is the OP author, @Base Farmer Martin??

I am a farmer in Cambridgeshire. I thought others would be interested in seeing this.

 

[renewablejohn]

We looked at it including the option of selling the carbon credits.

You get decent money up front to plant the trees but that money has to be spent on planting the trees. So no gain there.

There is the maintenance grant for 10 years plus the carbon credits which can be traded. You have to be verified for creating the credits, the credits have to be validated and can only be traded every 5 years.

You can't cut down the trees for any extra income.

My fag packet maths came in at less £100/acre across the first 10 years after which you lose the management grant.

Given I can rent it out or farm it myself and make more money from it as well as keeping it farm land and not growing someone elses tree's we pulled the plug on the 20 acres planned.

Cannot trust a word the Forestry Commission say. They changed the rules on my woodland agreement so the annual payment ceased in 2015 and the agreement term extended before I can cut the trees down.

 

[steveR]

I am a farmer in Cambridgeshire. I thought others would be interested in seeing this.

Cheers, just noted you had not posted much before.

 

[steveR]

Cannot trust a word the Forestry Commission say. They changed the rules on my woodland agreement so the annual payment ceased in 2015 and the agreement term extended before I can cut the trees down.

Hence my linking this thread with the ELMS thread, and whether NE/RPA/DEFRA can be trusted, and having heard of your tale of woe and bloody annoyance, I put the FC in the same category....

...Use a VERY long spoon when supping with these bodies...

 

[MartinLines]

Cheers, just noted you had not posted much before.

Been here for a number of years but when I joined Base my old account disappeared and this one was made I was LinesMartin

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Hence my linking this thread with the ELMS thread, and whether NE/RPA/DEFRA can be trusted, and having heard of your tale of woe and bloody annoyance, I put the FC in the same category....

...Use a VERY long spoon when supping with these bodies...

I'm doing my best to raise this point as, I believe, it is the biggest hurdle of all to ELMS.

I note the Ts & Cs in the extra detail just released for the SFI trial so differ from the old ones that have been used for over a decade now for every scheme going but not by much. They no longer permit "any public authority" to demand things but they do still allow DEFRA to unilaterally change the rules, including extending the contract. Its not an agreement in any sense a lawyer would accept, its a take-it-or-leave-it offer. A genuine agreement would only allow variation BY PRIOR AGREEMENT BETWEEN ALL PARTIES.

 

[kfpben]

My father put some woodland in 20 years ago on a Forestry Commission grant.
Financially it’s the equivalent of buying a sports car and then driving it into a gatepost on purpose.

 

[steveR]

I'm doing my best to raise this point as, I believe, it is the biggest hurdle of all to ELMS.

I note the Ts & Cs in the extra detail just released for the SFI trial so differ from the old ones that have been used for over a decade now for every scheme going but not by much. They no longer permit "any public authority" to demand things but they do still allow DEFRA to unilaterally change the rules, including extending the contract. Its not an agreement in any sense a lawyer would accept, its a take-it-or-leave-it offer. A genuine agreement would only allow variation BY PRIOR AGREEMENT BETWEEN ALL PARTIES.

I really do wish that we could raise this as a real worry and concern in another of @Clive 's Q&A sessions with the DEFRA bods.

I have pointed it out at a lower level, but I suspect that the minions will have also little input.... like the only real "stakeholders"...

 

[Clive]

I really do wish that we could raise this as a real worry and concern in another of @Clive 's Q&A sessions with the DEFRA bods.

I have pointed it out at a lower level, but I suspect that the minions will have also little input.... like the only real "stakeholders"...

will be another soon plus Janet Hughes is planning on running a “ask me anything “ thread this month

 

[steveR]

will be another soon plus Janet Hughes is planning on running a “ask me anything “ thread this month

Great news, thank you.

I will be delegating the actual question wording to my esteemed colleague, the Member from Cole Green in Herts!

 

[farmerm]

My father put some woodland in 20 years ago on a Forestry Commission grant.
Financially it’s the equivalent of buying a sports car and then driving it into a gatepost on purpose.

Well I was going to say something like given forest has a lower financial value than farmland and forest that cant be felled even less so, this looks like a great way to devalue an a land asset.... but your way or expressing this is far more poetic. Of course this economic argument may well shift, particularly on less productive land when the financial reality of extensive sheep and beef without BPS support start to bite...