Tree Planting Scheme

[Derrick Hughes]

Government launches new scheme to boost tree-planting

£50 million Woodland Carbon Guarantee scheme will encourage farmers and landowners to plant more trees and help to tackle climate change

www.gov.uk

 

[7610 super q]

Do we get paid £50 million per tree ? Per acre ? Per farm ? ?‍
Any extra for woodworm habitat ?

 

[7610 super q]

Do we have to go to Farming Connect meetings to be shown how to plant a tree ?

 

[som farmer]

£50 mil, 40m to organise it, 10 mil to farmers. on a serious note, I was told the future of uk farming will be for the absorbtion of carbon produced by industry, we would be paid x amount to grow carbon 'eating' crops, and proper farming would be a sideline, takes a bit of thinking about. But, if that is what we have to do, to stay on our farm, that's what we will do, actually, if you think about it, main income assured, leaving us to farm, as we like, with no pressing financials........

 

[teslacoils]

Until now we have been unable to claim normal carbon credits. I'm led to believe the net co2 we absorb and store is worth more than our bps payments. I don't have the hard data on this.

#publicgoods

 

[renewablejohn]

Cannot trust the Forestry Commission to pay out on existing woodland schemes so why would you trust them on any new scheme.

 

[teslacoils]

Cannot trust the Forestry Commission to pay out on existing woodland schemes so why would you trust them on any new scheme.

Indeed. Better off crowd funding 5ac of woodland on a "can't think of a Christmas present - sponsor ten trees" job.

 

[milkloss]

I never thought growing trees was actually sinking carbon anyway? Plant them, capture carbon for a couple of decades, burn them and then use all that diesel planting them again.

does anyone know the figures?

 

[farmerm]

Until now we have been unable to claim normal carbon credits. I'm led to believe the net co2 we absorb and store is worth more than our bps payments. I don't have the hard data on this.

#publicgoods

Carbon credits and carbon trading was invented purely to make the Rothschilds richier… The majority of UK farms are surely net CO2 emitters, particularly arable producers. Soil organic matter is generally in decline and most of the carbon that is locked up in biomass during the growing season is released again over the next year or 2 as crop are consumed and residues are broken down. How would a carbon credits scheme work in practice.. Ok say I move to direct drilling and over the first 5 years my organic matter test shows I have sequestered 1000T and I get a carbon credit payment but what happens if at year 10 my OM results comes back showing a decrease do I have to purchase carbon credits at the current market value?. it sounds like a dangerous game to me! What if I am Brazil and can see a global carbon payments market is just around the corner... why would I not decimate the rainforest in the short term so I can have the rest of the world pay vast carbon credits for rain forest restoration for at least the next few decades....

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Do we get paid £50 million per tree ? Per acre ? Per farm ? ?‍
Any extra for woodworm habitat ?

We as Welsh get nothing

 

[farmerm]

I never thought growing trees was actually sinking carbon anyway? Plant them, capture carbon for a couple of decades, burn them and then use all that diesel planting them again.

does anyone know the figures?

I would agree.. if you start with a mature woodland, fell it, burn it and replant it then it can not possibly be a carbon sink and like you say cant even be carbon neutral once you account for the diesel used to harvest, transport and replant. It could only be a carbon sink if the carbon locked up in the Timber is kept locked up by preserving the timber indefinitely.

if you start with an arable field and put commercial woodland on it would be a carbon sink for a period before it reaches the phase above... and back in recent history that productive arable field was probably mature woodland.. so really the only carbon planting tree on it can sink is equivalent to that released when it first became farmland... meanwhile the oil and gas that was stored in the ground much earlier continues to be released back into the atmostphere..

 

[Hesston4860s]

I personally wouldn’t bother getting involved, my late father planted 56ac up in the 90’s under the WGS/FWPS schemes. It was all rosey to start with get payed your grant each year and just watch them grow, after 15 years there yours to do as please and turn it back to farmland they said !. Then they move the goal posts and after 15 years the money stops and you have to keep the blasted trees for another 15 years with no money. All the while they are exempt from SPS unless you join the scheme in 2008 or after then you can claim both SPS and WGS/FWPS and later BPS, which is hardly fair to us earlier percipient’s in the scheme who now after the original 15 years is up get f@#£ all and still have the trees !.
All mine do now is cost me a small fortune each year with absolutely no return whatsoever, I keep hoping they’ll all blow over one night or get a terminal disease but it never happens unfortunately.

 

[Daniel Larn]

I think introducing a carbon trading scheme into UK agriculture could be* very positive.

*I say could be, because it could easily turn out terrible. My company are working on a carbon sequestering measure, that will physically measure what goes in and what comes out. This won't be possible for conventional farms, so there will be a lot of theoretical values thrown around. If the current CO2e system gets applied, then it doesn't look good, as it generally does not consider the net impact. This is why UK livestock gets tarred with the same brush as large US feedlot and Brazilian slash and burn farming.

This video is a great explainer for how the industry should be looking at carbon credits. Starts at 16mins ish.

 

[SilliamWhale]

We as Welsh get nothing

Don't we have a tree planting scheme anyway?

After Glastir was stopped and I have nothing in its place I don't trust the Welsh Govt so much now

 

[hollister]

Indeed. Better off crowd funding 5ac of woodland on a "can't think of a Christmas present - sponsor ten trees" job.

Similar to this chap

 

[renewablejohn]

If anyone wants to donate one pound a tree to me I will gladly plant them a tree. I can easily plant 10,000 trees a day so dont be worried about the size of your donation.

 

[farmerm]

If anyone wants to donate one pound a tree to me I will gladly plant them a tree. I can easily plant 10,000 trees a day so dont be worried about the size of your donation.

If we could share out the donations and the workload... here are some I planted yesterday

 

[renewablejohn]

Nothing new. Lord Yarborough in Lincolnshire congratulated himself on planting 12.5 million trees by erecting this monument called Pelhams Pillar.

Tour of pillar and parkland

Glorious sunshine set the mood for a group tour of Pelham’s Pillar on Lord Yarborough’s estate on Sunday (March 22, 2015). The monument and grounds are normally closed to the public, bu…

www.caistorcitizen.co.uk

 

[spin cycle]

i think planting trees is a good idea but no way would i enter into a govt scheme.....the reputation for paying what they promise is shot to pieces IMO

 

[som farmer]

if we were paid correctly for what we produce, with very little encouragement, most farms would be wild life friendly, most of us are quite knowledgible about habitats, and like to see wildlife around. But we are not, so to try and make things stack up, there is no time, no spare cash, to do so, The answer is easy, just can't see it happening any time soon.