New Forestry Grant scheme

Anyone have any idea when Mrs. Hackett and her boys will publish full details of the new grant scheme as well as supply application forms?

Announced to great fanfare and fluttering of various body parts November 8th. Not a peep since then.

cupacoffee

I emailed last week and by coincidence got my reply yesterday and it reads as follows

the new forestry programme is still in development and will be open to applications in the next few months

so there you are clear as mud

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120089427#Comment_120089427

In some ways I'm not surprised - they had a public comment period on the original proposal about setting out a new more sustainable forestry policy that was supposed to move away from destructive approaches like block planting of alien monoculture conifers, clearcutting etc. Instead they ignored the vast majority of the submissions and attempted to stick with the old destructive model. They are now rightly getting serious blow back on that , which has further intensified in light of Coillte's plans to team up with vulture funds in the forestry sector. A right mess...

Just had it from a senior inspector that neither application forms nor detailed descriptions of the grants will be available for this planting season.

How wonderful to be a public servant and suckle at the tit of the taxpayer...for free.

Ak84

If someone already had planting permission, but not yet planted on the old programme, they can plant through a De minimis scheme which has the new rates and 20 year premiums.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120136192#Comment_120136192

Yes but that's no good for all the planting applications which have been stuck in the system for years and where decisions are pending.

Point is that the the Forest Service idiots knew the planting programme was ending, that a new one had to be formulated but as usual they made the proverbial dogs dinner of it all. We need accountability but more than that what is really needed is the catastrophe inflicetd upon the forest industry with the attendant collapse in confidence in forestry by landpwners. It took years to get landowners on board with forestry and over a couple of months this trust has been shattered.

Ak84

I agree with ya. I was posting in case someone hadn't heard about the de minimis scheme.

blue5000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058278734/new-forestry-grant-scheme

Might be worth watching this one

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/committees/33/agriculture-food-and-the-marine/

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120147363#Comment_120147363

Had seen it. Ironic that 100 years after independence the the state funding a British takeover of our land. What's the ROR on grant-aided forestry with a premium? I thought if you did yourself it was in the range of 25-30%.

I blame many of our fellow foresters in DAFM. They have sold out their peers and former classmates.

Scum. But in the case of some of them I guess we always knew that.

minerleague

Don't get the hatred for the british fund - plenty of irish investing in property/farmland overseas. Sometimes they have to partner up with locals like what is happening with coillte here. Should they be stopped too? ( making farmland dear on local people for instance)

Birdnuts

Apparently the EU has told the Irish government that their new forestry plan is basically rubbish and ignores best practice across the board in terms of protecting water quality, habitats and rural communities etc.. Amazing a government with so called Greens can sign off on such a crock🙄

tabby aspreme

Pippa Hackett and the DAFM having destroyed farmer confidence in forestry, are desperate to get any kind of trees planted, so will happily agree to the Coillte deal and then give themselves plaudits for increasing the number of hectares planted.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120162766#Comment_120162766

No hatred here...Brit passportholder but Jacob Rees Mogg and his ilk owning and making profits from this country? I find it very hard to swallow. Good forestry practice should reward forests plantings managed by people living here, managed as multiple use ventures to varying degrees where possible.

minerleague

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166287#Comment_120166287

Yes but why is this fund willing to invest while irish farmers/investors seem slow to do so. I am aware of delays in licences etc. Plenty profits going to multinationals from here too. The government have rowed back now anyway from similar type arrangements so not an issue anymore

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166527#Comment_120166527

Coillte are using this as a long term strategy to build land, the Gresham fund allows them a way around them not being allowed receive grants for land.

This fund and the payments going forward mean that Coillte will be aggressive in purchasing land, and while they have destroyed most bog land in Ireland, they are now moving on to permanent pastures.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166527#Comment_120166527

People were promsied great rewards from forestry years back when the first big grants and premia came in. SOme planted land that never should have been planted it was so poor and it produced nothing of value. Coillte offered partnerships which saw them take the grants, not manage the crop and at harvest there the landowner received little. Then when the economy collapsed, premia were cut by I think 8%. ANother promise broken. THen to cap it all the licencing fiasco where people with timber that needed to be felled could get neither a licence to fell nor a road.A massive breaking of faith with landowners is what has happened and the numbers oc clients who tell me they wish they had never planted their land is unreal.

The Forest Service and Coillte have alsot of making up to do. In their arrogance they seem to believe that farmers are stupid. They will fubd out that they are dealing with a whole new class of farmer nowadays.