Tree Planting Scheme

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
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

There's also their penchant for changing the rules after you've signed a contract with them.......given trees are hardly a 5 minute affair and politics runs on an attention span of nothing beyond 6 months, you can bet your bottom dollar that anything we as farmers sign up to today will have been changed out of all recognition by the time the contract comes to an end.
 

spin cycle

Member
Location
north norfolk
There's also their penchant for changing the rules after you've signed a contract with them.......given trees are hardly a 5 minute affair and politics runs on an attention span of nothing beyond 6 months, you can bet your bottom dollar that anything we as farmers sign up to today will have been changed out of all recognition by the time the contract comes to an end.

my thoughts exactly (y)
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
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.
Has your chainsaw broken down?
 

Poncherello1976

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Oxfordshire
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
We are going to be planting about 1300 trees and 300m hedge over the winter. Looked at various different schemes. Wanted nothing to do with the RPA though! Have gone for the woodlands Trust scheme. They cover about 60% if the cost and so we just pay the 40%. RPA scheme maybe financially better, but I do not have to worry about getting my money from them!
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
It's half arsed greenwash, and makes me spit.

We can be cajoled into planting schemes with no clear objective, while the earths mineral and fossil resources go on being dug up like never before.
The carbon we'd capture in these trees won't stay captured except in very specific circumstances.....and all the while we're still releasing more.
All it does is salve urban consciences, and tick politico boxes.

And above comments about getting land locked into woodland, and/or not getting paid the promised cash are exactly accurate in my own experience.
I've long been a tree planter, often solely at my own expense, and I've experienced both of the above.
I'm now carefully looking at how I'd be prosecuted should I remove some (on land I lately bought) which are in the wrong place/wrong/stupid species.

I note that what I've already done without grant will not now be rewarded. Should I fell them, grass over, and start again to get this payment?

I'd advocate extreme caution before dealing with the woodland trust.
Their objectives are very contrary to most farmers.
They don't want you to learn to manage woodland as another crop, al la continent, but rather they'd prefer (and lobby) for woodland be left unmanaged ...furthering the fantasy that by exporting our demands, we'll be able to frolic with unicorns in sylvan glades.

It's a huge pile of steaming horse manure, which saddens me, when our profession should be helped to step toward wider understanding of trees as a crop - the carbon and wildlife can follow along behind.
 

renewablejohn

Member
Location
lancs
It's half arsed greenwash, and makes me spit.

We can be cajoled into planting schemes with no clear objective, while the earths mineral and fossil resources go on being dug up like never before.
The carbon we'd capture in these trees won't stay captured except in very specific circumstances.....and all the while we're still releasing more.
All it does is salve urban consciences, and tick politico boxes.

And above comments about getting land locked into woodland, and/or not getting paid the promised cash are exactly accurate in my own experience.
I've long been a tree planter, often solely at my own expense, and I've experienced both of the above.
I'm now carefully looking at how I'd be prosecuted should I remove some (on land I lately bought) which are in the wrong place/wrong/stupid species.

I note that what I've already done without grant will not now be rewarded. Should I fell them, grass over, and start again to get this payment?

I'd advocate extreme caution before dealing with the woodland trust.
Their objectives are very contrary to most farmers.
They don't want you to learn to manage woodland as another crop, al la continent, but rather they'd prefer (and lobby) for woodland be left unmanaged ...furthering the fantasy that by exporting our demands, we'll be able to frolic with unicorns in sylvan glades.

It's a huge pile of steaming horse manure, which saddens me, when our profession should be helped to step toward wider understanding of trees as a crop - the carbon and wildlife can follow along behind.
Very much agree about the Woodland Trust. After some very dubious dealing with Bolton Council they acquired the Smithills estate with some equally dubious funding including lottery funding. The resulting mismanagement of the estate resulted in the devastating fire on Winter Hill for which they still deny all responsibility for and yet stll seek donations to replant. Basically there an outfit rewilding but conning the public into thinking they actually manage woodland.

 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
All this talk of carbon whilst the UK hoovers up and burns natural gas at an astonishing rate 24/7 to make electricity and chucks plastic and household waste in a hole in the ground.
Quite. There's a lot more to polluting the planet than the current bogeyman carbon. Talk about a single issue having many consequences.

All this talk of planting trees saving the planet is mind numbing. They grow for a bit, do nothing for a bit, die and fall to the ground to rot (or harvested and burned) and release all that carbon back into the atmosphere. It's called a carbon cycle. Bureaucracy can't deal with this at the same time as digging up and burning fossil fuels, waaay too much for them to think about at the same time.
 

milkloss

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
Coming to a bunny huggers desk near you soon. NASA’s gas detecting satellite:

could be fun!
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
Coming to a bunny huggers desk near you soon. NASA’s gas detecting satellite:

could be fun!

It will certainly be fun to see how much is emitted naturally from wetlands. Especially if most wetlands and bogs were classified as being super-emitters. Oh what fun that would be.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
It will certainly be fun to see how much is emitted naturally from wetlands. Especially if most wetlands and bogs were classified as being super-emitters. Oh what fun that would be.
to sort out flooding, esp in the wetlands, can't we claim that the drained land, absorbs more carbon ? whether it does, or not, nat England, puts voles, bugs and flowers before humans being flooded out !
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
to sort out flooding, esp in the wetlands, can't we claim that the drained land, absorbs more carbon ? whether it does, or not, nat England, puts voles, bugs and flowers before humans being flooded out !
Flooded land emits methane. Visible bubbles of the stuff are commonly seen being emitted as if the land was farting. Over large areas of boggy wetland this must surely be a very significant methane source.
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Coming to a bunny huggers desk near you soon. NASA’s gas detecting satellite:

could be fun!
Ooh look, we've just discovered that landfill, fossil fuel plants and massive dairy farms emit methane. Who knew? Never mind that though, now we can somehow guess at a figure thanks to our image sensing equipment we now have an easy route to tax tf out these horrid people. Aren't we great?
 

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

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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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