England Woodland Creation Offer from the Forestry Commission

Rossymons

Member
Location
Cornwall
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

Member
Mixed Farmer
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???
 

Rossymons

Member
Location
Cornwall
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

Member
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.
 

renewablejohn

Member
Location
lancs
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

Member
Mixed Farmer
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...
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
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.
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
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

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
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
 

farmerm

Member
Location
Shropshire
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...
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.1%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,287
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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