Farmers wary of ‘billion trees’ plan

NEW ZEALAND FARMERS ARE WARY OF BECOMING PART OF the government’s ‘billion trees’ programme, the ForestWood 2018 conference held in Wellington last month was told.

Andrew Hoggard, Vice President of Federated Farmers, told the conference that “the sheep and beef guys feel threatened by forestry” and they would need to be persuaded that coming on board is to their benefit.

Converting farmland into forests is viewed as a threat to the viability of rural communities, especially schools, rather than seen as an opportunity. It will require understanding the needs of the farmer and being able to tailor solutions to them.

And as for dairy farmers, he suggested that the opportunities to grow trees on their properties were very limited and might only add up to a miniscule 15 trees per hectare overall.

Of those trees, few might be pines, if his own dairy farm is anything to go by. Mr Hoggard says he has ornamentals on some land and isn’t looking at Radiata for future plantings that he might need to do to mitigate climate change.

Mr Hogaard put up figures in his presentation to show what planting he thought might be achievable on farmland throughout New Zealand. He estimates that 6% of sheep and beef farms could be converted to tree cover which, at a density of 300 stems per hectare, and with 559,680ha suited to trees, would add up to a national total of 167.9 million trees – which is 16.7% of the government’s target. And with dairy providing 15 trees per hectare, that would add another 36.2 million trees.

Although he agrees that more trees are needed on New Zealand farms he describes it as a niche market and while there are opportunities, “perhaps not the opportunity you had in mind”.

NZL