Forestry Now

speaker-0 (00:01.752)
Welcome to Forestry Now, where we explore the forces impacting profitable and sustainable management of commercial forests and natural woodlands. I'm Dermot McNally. In this episode, I speak with Dr. Jula from Trinity College Dublin's multidisciplinary forest research team. Jula shares key findings from her research into why Irish farmers are reluctant to engage in afforestation despite strong financial incentives, as well as national and EU level planting targets.

Drawing on her surveys and in-depth interviews with farmers, Julie explains how Irish landowners aren't anti-forestry, but that the state must do much more to convince farmers to plant. The discussion reveals insights into farming identity, community influence, loss of trust in the forestry service, and why many farmers simply choose to wait rather than plant now.

Jula also shares grounds for optimism as many farmers express a strong desire to be involved in climate solutions, especially if payment for ecosystem services becomes available. All show notes in the links, as well as where you can sign up to my newsletter. And lastly, enjoy the conversation. Jula, thanks for joining me. Maybe you could introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself.

speaker-1 (01:18.446)
Yeah, my name is La Titi Ge Zhu. Please call me Zhu La. So I recently completed my PhD in Sustainable Finance at Trinity College Dublin. So thank you so much for having me.

speaker-0 (01:29.666)
No, you're very, very welcome. OK, so your PhD was in sustainable finance and your main area was forestry then, is that right? Yes. Well, maybe we'd start off and you could explain why detailed research was needed into Irish farmers' hesitation to plant because I know that's been a big focus of your research and the team at Trinity.

speaker-1 (01:49.678)
Yes, of course. So I think the background is Ireland has 11.6 % of her forest cover, one of the lowest among EU, and it has quite ambitious target to reach it to 18 % of the land and 50 % of new established forest should be native or broadleaf trees. So the country has the ambitious on that. And also from the EU level, there's also like the forest strategy aiming to plant three billion

additional tree by 2030, but now it's less than 40 million planted. So we have four years to plant another 2.6 billion. And also forest is important for what we call twin crisis nowadays, like climate change and biodiversity loss. So it itself is a very important topic. And we sit in Ireland and farmers who hold the most of the land and who has the most potential to increase the forest area.

That's why my research is focusing in Ireland and also focusing on full hammers.

speaker-0 (02:53.4)
Perfect. Okay, so in simple terms then, over the course of a number of different research projects, interviews, surveys, you spoke to a big range of Irish farmers, very representative, and you spoke to them about afforestation, their attitudes towards it, their fears, and their opinions. And you gathered all this information and you grouped it under three main pillars, irreversibility, uncertainty, and flexibility. So maybe...

If we could start off by finding out what Farmer said under the irreversibility pillar and what came up when you grouped answers under that please.

speaker-1 (03:32.696)
So I did two studies. One is based on survey and another based on interviews. And then the survey paper I want expand here, but the results shows the replanting requirement is the biggest barriers for farmers to plant. So in this interviews, it shows us again and is like definitely biggest barriers. When we're talking about replanting requirement, we're probably only thinking, it's a legal requirement. But then it has much more complicated impact.

under it. For example, the land will be re-declinated as forest land forever. This is a legal result. And then the farmer will feel like, I lost my autonomy over land. Since comparing with conventional farming, the farmer can decide what they plant and when they want to plant. But with forestry, you have to apply for the A forest following sinning lessons. So the farmer saying like, this is my land. Why you are talking like telling me what to do. Yeah.

speaker-0 (04:29.454)
So maybe I'll stop you there because you had a good quote. One of the farmers said the forestry locks up land. another farmer said that he felt that if he planted, he would be dictating to future generations. Let me just expand on those little points a wee bit more, especially the future generation thing, because that doesn't immediately jump to my mind.

speaker-1 (04:43.01)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (04:51.064)
Since the replanting requirement will be forever and it's basically you are making a decision not only for your land now, but also for your future generations. And then they have to carry out this replanting requirement as well if they want to harvest. So they have to bear the cost to make sure the land is forested. So the farmers are thinking we are making the decisions for our future generations and we are dictating the land from them.

speaker-0 (05:17.164)
Yeah and then you also mentioned that forestry entails a loss of autonomy in the farmers. The farmers perception was that forestry entails a loss of autonomy and they have to apply for licenses and permission to plant. There could be specialist reports. How do they feel that this is different than conventional farming then?

speaker-1 (05:39.758)
I think now conventional farming also have a lot of like red tape, but then farmer will reflect the forest has even more especially for yeah, like for a forest rationing lessons, they have to go through a lot of consultations and assessments. And even for falling lessons, that will be some delays and uncertainties farmer report a lot of around this. So it's basically you can't make decision today and implement today, like implement the next day, you have to wait.

So that's also kind of lost the right.

speaker-0 (06:12.43)
Yeah, okay. And then still under irreversibility from a financial point of view, think time and time again, the farmers seem to highlight this replanting obligation as a permanent financial liability or some cost. Why do you think that kept coming up for them? Because it seems intuitive. You've planted the land, it has to stay as far as straight. You're going to have to replant it. They seem to have high expectations of the state here.

speaker-1 (06:37.386)
Yes, I think the main reason is once you plant the land value will drop immediately. Like from the interview farmer will reflect like she bought the land, like both arable land and forest land. Forest land is basically half price of the arable land because of the replanting requirements. So it's the huge sun cost farmer have to carry for themselves. And also like this is biggest reasons.

And another like two-step to same from the interview is, you know, under current forest type 11 and 12, that if it's a mainly spruce or conifer forest, you have to have like at least 20 % of broadleaf forest. And farmers will interpret it differently that even though they receive the premium for 20 years for whole land, the entire area, but then after 20 years, they don't generate any income from that 20 % broadleaf or native trees.

and then they consider it they're donating the land to the nation and provide free public good. So from their perspective is another layer.

speaker-0 (07:44.844)
Yeah, you call it the productive land penalty. The idea that they don't see the premium as the premium is for loss of earnings in the 20 years, but the biodiversity areas and the low productivity broadleaves is an infinite burden that the landowner has to carry. So the farmers aren't saying that they're against the biodiversity areas.

or the broadleaf trees, am I right? But they're just saying, we don't like the fact that we're not getting recognized for the low productivity of this. Is that right?

speaker-1 (08:20.16)
Yes, and also they think they are providing free public goods that they are not rewarding for.

speaker-0 (08:27.148)
Yeah, yeah, well, it makes sense. When you interviewed, did you visit any of the farms or the forests that were planted or over the last couple of years? I'm sure you've seen some of this, have you?

speaker-1 (08:36.628)
Yeah,

speaker-0 (08:39.144)
And compared to conventional farming, the farmers can come up right up to the ditches. They can graze perhaps ring forts or archaeological features, but all of those get removed. So that's a big bugbear then for farmers at the minute. Let's move on then. Still under irreversibility, you explain that the farmers seem to associate planting trees with a loss of farming identity and almost a failure. Can you explain how they

explain that to you.

speaker-1 (09:10.094)
A farmer will say, like in Ireland, farmers and foresters, two separate groups. And they're growing up, they will hear, they're hearing, or they feel like only failure farmer who will plant the forest. So in Ireland, think farmers are really proud to be farmers and really proud to be able to produce in food. It's very important to producing. then forest in this sense is not considered this way.

They feel like we are just giving up the land, giving up the farming because we are not producing. Yeah. So this is more cultural thing. Yeah.

speaker-0 (09:50.338)
thing. Yeah, are you saying then that they don't look at growing trees as a farming enterprise? They see it as something different? Okay, and the research seemed to indicate that farmers, many farmers felt that conifer plantations had a negative connotation. Why was that do you think?

speaker-1 (09:58.027)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (10:09.742)
I think from like before there's when Ireland started a forest is like spruce dominant plantation, monoculture plantation, it caused huge negative image about forests. most farmers when they're talking about forests in their mind is spruce forest, is dark, black, no one with it and they block the land view. So it's naturally associated with the forest with a specific type of forest.

But then nowadays we are promoting another type, but the image still weighs the spruce forest.

speaker-0 (10:45.176)
Yeah, that's the dominant thing when they think of forestry, they think of the spruce, the conifer blankets. Okay. And then on the opposite of that, many of the farmers expressed a favourability towards native woodlands. But then again, that hasn't actually translated into big higher planting rates. So why is that then?

speaker-1 (11:07.662)
That is exactly what I found in my survey. like farmers who like to plant, they will consider spruce forest and the farmers who don't want to plant, they love native trees. So I think they definitely recognize the benefit of the native trees provided. But then I think then we can move to the second pillar of my interviews is uncertainty around a filtration. that okay?

speaker-0 (11:31.0)
That's perfect timing,

speaker-1 (11:33.55)
So compare with conventional farming, which is based on annually. You receive the subsidies and you plant annually, you plant the year annually. The forest is a very long-term commitment. It's like at least 40 years or even longer, like 100 years for broadleaf trees. So there's several layers of uncertainty. First is the administration and policy uncertainty. Like licensing is a big topic in Ireland.

farmers express a lot of frustration around how long they're waiting for the afforestation lessons, how much like red tape consultation they have to do to go through. And also I remember one quote very clearly talking about the policy shift. The farmer, the forest owner talking about in 2014 when the forest premium changed from 20 years to 15 years, they got really upset as saying like, we're making a permanent land use change.

And you are changing the policy overnight. So there's a layer of mistrust and then the worried uncertainty about the policies. And also farmers will reflect about the capabilities. For example, in Ireland, there's over 300 farm advisers, but less than 10 forest advisers. And the farmers who want to go to agroforestry or native forestry with very specific requirements,

They found difficulties to have the right forester to help them and also limited resource with forest advisor. This is all under policy and administration. And there's layer of financial uncertainty as well associated with licensing. When there is a good timber price coming up, the farmer can't like sell the timber at that point because they have to acquire for the following lessons first. when they finally got the lessons, the price dropped down. like farmers are frustrated about it.

Yeah.

speaker-0 (13:29.326)
That kind of ties back into the idea of autonomy. They have their timber crop, but they really just can't go ahead and manage it like they would a different crop. When the cattle farmer is looking at the prices of beef in the mart, he can move very quickly. With timber, it's slower.

speaker-1 (13:47.598)
Yes, exactly. also, forests has other risks like the disease. Ash dieback, think, is really bad stories here that it takes a really long time for government coming up with a compensation plan and the farmers is not happy about it. But if you consider in agriculture setting, if there's disease happen, like the subsistence or compensation plan come up much quicker. So and also

farmers are really worried about buck beetles. They think the government is not taking enough actions to stop it since they really worried about the timber import from Scotland, for example. And yeah, the storm happened last year. I think it's another layer of risk. Also, like the forest fire in Inchview, there's one farmer experience of forest fire. There's a lot of this natural risk associated with as well.

I think the last point is also go back to the cultural identity part. That uncertainty that you are not sure how your neighbors, how your community will react to your plantation. One farmer is saying like he wants to expand the aphorization to the road and then the neighbors will keep just checking what this guy is doing. So there's uncertainty about how your peers, your community will have the certain opinions or view you.

And also you are uncertain about your future generation. How will they see your decision making today? Are they happy about it? So there's four layers uncertainty associated with just planting trees.

speaker-0 (15:26.638)
That brings a bell, think it's this idea of the intergenerational farmer, people who've been on the land for 100, 200, 300 years in many cases, they're very proud of that connection. Most farmers would like to see someone inheriting or taking over their farm. And I think what shines through in the research is that they want to give them an asset that they'll be happy with as well. They don't want to deprive them of options. Another thing, before we finish on uncertainty, you mentioned an interesting one. Some of the farmers said that

They had concerns about the eroding value of the forestry premiums. And on top of that, they said that the tax-free reputation of forestry was a myth. Could you shine a wee bit of light on those parts, the premium and the tax-free reputation, or where did that come from?

speaker-1 (16:14.124)
Yes. So the current premium is not index linked. So if the inflation goes up, like the farmer's purchasing power will be low. So farmers are like, what if the inflation goes up, goes up crazy, then the money you provide for 20 years is means less. And another is like, we always say the premium is tax free, but two farmers interview is saying like, actually not. It's only free from income taxes.

PRSI and then some livis. Yes, so they're when they find out this they are really angry about it. Say in their mind it should be text free like completely free. So yeah.

speaker-0 (16:45.506)
Yeah, USA.

speaker-0 (16:57.398)
Yeah, and that's true. It's not tax free. the government is showing no willingness to reverse that decision to bring it into the tax net. And just on that point, you talked about the farmer who wanted to extend his agroforestry. I was struck by that comment actually. And I have the quote here. He talked about the neighbors. He said, they're afraid I'm going to plant at the road. Now he perceived that they thought he was going to plant sickness spruce. Everyone objects. It's a kind of natural pastime for us here. Okay.

So here's a farmer and he's worried about what the neighbours will say and he's kind of owning up and saying, objecting as a pastime here. Now earlier in the interview we talked about farmers have a fear of losing autonomy to the state. But it seems to me that in the first instance farmers are actually more hampered and have lost, they've given some of their autonomy away to their neighbours because they're afraid of what the neighbours might think or say. Is that a fair comment?

speaker-1 (17:57.314)
Like we're all political animals, like we are all social people. We can't live without the community. think from the previous research in literature, your peers, your community definitely have a huge impact on your personal behavior. So I think it's very valid to consider, to have the influence to consider, like as you said, like the autonomy over to the neighbors. Yeah.

speaker-0 (18:22.434)
Well it seems to play into it. there were other stigmas around forestry in the rural context then. We've mentioned maybe the idea that it was a failure. Was there other stigmas then that were mentioned? I think one of them mentioned environmentalism.

speaker-1 (18:37.484)
I think from literature, remember people are saying the thickest blues were bad for the biodiversity since it's like the ground floor are completely dead. It's not good for the groundwater. So there is some impact on it. And also it's also considered harm the local, like the rural community, the economic, since once you plant, people just move out, it's quite few dead there.

And it also in old days if it's plantation from investors if they just lost the land and then it's

speaker-0 (19:12.952)
Yeah, and so do aesthetics, the aesthetics of forestry plantations and landscape preferences play into the farmers attitudes that you spoke to?

speaker-1 (19:22.336)
Yes, Ireland has a really beautiful rural landscape, green and you can see far away, can see your neighbors, you can see. But when the monoculture spruce plantation came in, just blocked everything, it's dark. And probably it's also in an old way. Nowadays people are talking about managing the forest and continuing to cover different methods so the forest looks beautiful.

But in old days, it was planned in a very tight, dark way that the view is not what it look like. We have way better views here, but now you just destroy the view.

speaker-0 (20:02.402)
Yeah, yeah, okay. Then the third and final pillar was flexibility. And this centers around attractive and alternative land uses now and in the future. So this is quite a big one that's playing in. I want to start off with solar and wind just first. Some of the farmers mentioned these as possible options, things that they might consider doing with their land. But again, going back to a similar theme we touched on,

I'm wondering is there a contradiction here on the one hand because farmers are saying they're worried about the social stigma and what their neighbours might object to forestry. But on the other hand they are actually open to considering an equally controversial land use because to be honest it's up and down Ireland now we do have lots of objections to solar and wind. I know this maybe wasn't the focus of your research but it comes clear to me.

that there's slight inconsistency there, is there? Or how do you feel about that?

speaker-1 (21:03.982)
Yeah, I think in the interview, also touched on there are some farmers don't like solar as well. have their comments around solar and wind, different from forest. But I still listen to them here as compared with forest, they first have better financial returns and also the contract is like 40 years, 45 years or 25 years.

and they can revert back. It's not like permanent land use change. For forests, once you plant is forever, but then for them, they can still have the options like after 50 years, after how long the land is still agricultural land, they still can have some flexibilities around it.

speaker-0 (21:53.548)
Yeah that makes sense. so farmers seem to be weighing up all of these different possibilities, options, future scenarios and that helps them come to their current decision. It also strikes me as well that there's something about the idea of leasing or giving your land over to someone who's given you a very

clear and planned and agreed set of payments and that's very attractive. The certainty of that is very good. And maybe is that where, is that one of the key things here? Forestry is losing just because beyond the premiums, the risk is yours and you have to keep replanting. Is that really a massive difference here?

speaker-1 (22:40.92)
I think so. When farmers talking about, since farmer has more options than we thought, it's not only about like, if we farm or we plant, they have way more options to how they want to deal with their land. And especially under the current situation is like land competition is really big topic and then the dairy expansions. like land leasing is...

quite common popular way and then the price is driving up in some era quite high like farmers saying like 700 per acre and it's tax free income. it's like financially makes sense and also after 10 years the land is still agriculture land. Farmers have the options to say okay at that point I want to do this or that so the flexibility is really high.

speaker-0 (23:31.596)
Yeah, you actually have a great quote there from one of your participants. said, rental and the income from land rental is income tax exempt. That's actually killing forestry in a way. Is that an oversimplification, do you think, or is that really the crux of our issue? The reason I say that is because solar and wind are very aspirational land uses in a way. awful lot of things have to be right for solar or wind.

actually happen on your land, but any piece of land can be leased. Virtually any piece of farm ground you will find someone to lease it. is that the crux of our issue? This tax free rental, land rental, is that really what's forestry do you think?

speaker-1 (24:18.934)
Yeah, I think if I'm a farmer, I can't, and they call it or even more money and I still own the land, the land value is still there. It's one job. And after 10 years, it's still my land. can do whatever then like even just considering from, and also I maintain my identity. didn't lose autonomy. Like it's, it's a good options, I think for farmers. Another

thing about land use is like one young farmer will say like he really don't like forest as for young farmers when he wants to expand the land like his farm the first place he will consider will be the marginal land which current forests should like are targeting and then if you he has to compete with the with the forest the marginal land probably but that problem is not that huge but listening is just the

great options for farmers if they don't want to plant themselves and they have the land.

speaker-0 (25:23.438)
If you're interested in buying or selling a forest that's already planted, then you should contact Paul Lafferty at Forestsales.ie. Paul has forests large and small, conifer and broadleaf for sale from Donegal to Dungarvan and everywhere in between. So look up Forestsales.ie to find out more. Now back to the chat with Jula. I wonder, was the research done into the relative rates? Now this is, I know you didn't do this.

But was there ever research that you came across that explored the typical rental rates 20 or 30 years ago compared to what the forestry rates were? Because it strikes me between the change in the tax treatment of land rental and forestry that we could probably look at land rental when forestry rates were high. I'm expecting land rental values were very low.

and the Farshu premium was high and it seems as if it has swung the other way. Is there any actual evidence of that apart from anecdotally?

speaker-1 (26:28.82)
No, I haven't seen one. Like most NPV analysis will be focusing on like either like farming or forest. So it definitely will be very interesting to include the land leasing since there's completely different scenarios. Yeah.

speaker-0 (26:45.358)
Yeah, it seems to me that when you speak to older farmers who wanted an option 20, 30 years ago, that forestry was a really good option relative to the other options that were available at that time. It still had the downsides, but they were prepared to accept it because I think the relative rate of rent or the relative forestry premium was much better than the rent and perhaps the rent wasn't tax free.

That's an area of future research for you, Jula, that you can look at. I'm sure you've lots more to do. Then we'll move on to future opportunities. So we've talked about land rental and solar and wind. Farmers are also listing possible future income streams from carbon, biodiversity, payments for ecosystem services. Now, I know you've done other great research on the economic valuation of biodiversity. And so maybe we could just spend a minute on that and say,

When you've done this really, maybe you tell actually listeners what you researched and what the key findings were because I think it feeds back into this idea that there might be payment for ecosystem services at some stage.

speaker-1 (27:54.69)
So my paper is looking at how in academics people are assigning a monetary value for forest biodiversity. And then the result shows it's a very fragmented area. There's no agreement or consensus on what indicator should be used and how to measure the methods, indicators, or the results. The value varies a lot. So for that research we are advocating for, need

like economists and ecology have to work together to come up with a consensus, like with indicator set and we assign the value. And the multiple reasons will influence the value as well from my meta analysis, for example, the GDP per capita, population density, forest size, and what method they're using and what indicator is using. I think it's a very important topic to discuss and very relevant for Ireland case as

I think for Ireland, the target has two layers. First is increasing the A forest ration area. Another layer is increasing the native and broadleaf forests, right? 50 % of newly established have to be native or broadleafs. And then when we consider in my mind, like the spruce forest and then broadleaf, like native trees, financially spruce works better, right? And then from carbon perspective, spruce also works better. Then why we need native trees?

because of the biodiversity. And we need to come up a price for that to make the native trees more appealing. Or you have to come up with something to encourage people go this way, right? And you can't just require farmers to plant for nothing to provide the public good. So we need a market to compensate not only carbon, but also the biodiversity. So coming back to the interviews paper.

I think farmers are really looking forward to it since definitely they want more stream of income that provide more, yeah, not only income, but also the sense of security, right? And during the survey, I think I asked one question about farmers. What future income source would you prefer? And there three options. First is government subsidy. Second is like timber revenue or firewood revenue. And then third is market payments from

speaker-1 (30:15.79)
market mechanism payment from carbon or biodiversity. And 39 points something, like almost 40 % farmers choosing the market mechanism, like carbon or biodiversity one. So I think it's definitely what they want and it makes perfect sense to it. there's many, I think, practice, like a case studies around the world on this as well. For example, I noticed like UK, they have like England.

forgot the full name. So they have the compensations for the establishment cost, but then you can also add another layer of income based on is providing biodiversity, providing soil, water benefit, then the payment will add up. So it's recognizing the ecosystem service or the public good the forest are providing. So I would believe they can be a good way to encouraging farmers in Ireland to plant trees.

And also like planting native or broadleaf trees that it won't be just the few, oh, I plant something worth nothing after 20 years. It should be a long-term payment. Like as long as the tree is there, the service providing, they should get a payment for that. So yeah.

speaker-0 (31:31.64)
No that's good. Essentially there's an aspiration to earn ecosystem payments but really there's no clear mechanism at the minute and we'll come on to that in a bit. This is why timber stands out as a really good mechanism for payment. You've got your government subsidy which is, farmers are familiar with that. They understand that the tree, this Bruce tree is worth money. It seems like that if the option was there they would prefer

they would increasingly prefer to be getting ecosystem payment money rather than relying on timber or government subsidies. Okay, well that's encouraging because it seems to say to us that if society as a whole can start to value what farmers and forest owners are delivering, then we'll find it much easier to convince new farmers to move down that road. The next question I wanted to explore a little bit is

speaker-1 (32:07.598)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (32:30.04)
Part of your research is technical in that farmers seem to assign a value to waiting. There's a value in waiting, there's a value in holding back, keeping your options open, maybe in the likes of premiums. So maybe just talk a little bit about that, why that actually has a value for farmers.

speaker-1 (32:51.2)
So, based on the theory I'm using, like real option theory, it's talking about you have the option, it's the right, not obligation to do certain things. You can't indefinitely. You have the option to plant indefinitely, and you have the option to wait. And then when the investment is highly irreversible and highly uncertainty, the waiting, the value of waiting, the option of waiting actually acquire the economic value.

So in this sense, Irish farmer has options to just wait or plant. But waiting here means it has financial value as because of the high irreversibility and the high uncertainty we mentioned before. And also the value is maybe the policy will get better. For example, we will have this carbon or biodiversity market, or we will have better policy settings, better licensing settings. Like a farmer came out a lot of recommendations around it.

the way they think like, okay, for example, like the premium are index linked or it's become truly tax free. And maybe the government can share the replanting cost or like the payment can extend longer, like especially for broad or native trees. So the waiting for a batch situation can have the value as well. So I think it makes perfectly sense for farmers here that they're not planting indirectly.

speaker-0 (34:18.542)
Okay, well, yeah, I think that brings us on really nicely now. So we've covered farmers' thoughts, objections, concerns about planting under your three pillars. And now we'll try and talk about possible policy implications, maybe some of the things Forest or farmers suggested. You've touched on it there. Let's move on. How does the government then, through policy, these

legal administrative irreversibility of planting then. How do they address that? To convince farmers.

speaker-1 (34:50.254)
Yeah, based on these three pillars, so we can see we can work on to mitigate the irreversibilities, reduce uncertainty and enhance the flexibility, right? And for first one, mitigate the irreversibility. It will be a little bit hard since like we're under EU policy, it will be hard to remove the replanting requirements like entirely. But maybe we can have some like flexibility like Finland.

In their forest act, there's possibility you can switch back, you can convert land use. I only saw that one case, but most European countries have this replanting requirement. also, farmers will advise, suggest that, we can have different tier of payment for farmers who want only have one rotation, they should have lower subsidies. For farmers who make the land permanently change, they should have higher subsidies.

Or on the certain land like the peatland, or they should have the reassessment going on after one rotation to see if the land is still suitable for forest. So they should have more, a bit of flexibilities around the replanting requirements. But I think it's also a legal issue. It's hard to probably to change it or, but still, yeah, people are discussing the possibilities around it.

speaker-0 (36:18.242)
And maybe as well, we don't know this, and perhaps with the research you're doing in Trinity, you're revealing more, maybe 30 years ago, some of these farmers didn't fully understand what they were signing up to, but we don't know that now. I've noticed as well that with the ash dieback scheme, there's an option to move from a monoculture of ash, which is what you had, you can replant it, but you can also consider agroforestry, which is a step back to bringing it back into farming production.

Did that come up in conversation or was that even considered at the time? Because I know some of these interviews were done two years ago.

speaker-1 (36:52.704)
No, we haven't touched on this so specifically, yeah.

speaker-0 (36:56.81)
Okay, you have also mentioned that there's communication strategies that the government could think about to reposition a forestry as farming trees. Maybe you talk about that a little bit as well.

speaker-1 (37:08.822)
Yes, like instead of like planting trees, maybe we can say like a farming timber or farming trees since like forest do a farming activity. then because we already know like in some part of like Ireland or farmer consider like forest and forest to separate group, maybe we can do something to help to align this to like is part of farm activity is not completely.

away from farming. also there's a lot of misinformation. Like when we talk with farmers, think there's mistrust, misinformation. And for some farmers, after they plant, they realize they have to replant. So I think there is a better job can be done that to communicate clearly what's the policies, what's the income tax free, like the tax free or income tax free.

made this clear and also how you frame the agenda, like frame it in a way that is more aligned with identity.

speaker-0 (38:19.158)
Okay well maybe you also talked about uncertainty then that the government needs to reduce uncertainty. Was there anything obvious that came up under that heading then?

speaker-1 (38:28.406)
Yes, like the farmers were mentioning, it be great to have it index linked and tax free, extended payments, very important for like broadleaf trees. Also better like state-backed insurance. Yeah. Since the current commercial insurance is very high, like very pricey and doesn't make sense to for farmers or even commercial ones to purchase the insurance. But we need it as the climate change.

we needed to cover the storm damage or like the forest fire, the farmers who experienced it saying like the insurance, he got the repayment for the loss. But then again, the insurance company said it will be like three strikes, then you are out. After three times, they will not cover anything. And then it takes quite an effort for him to get it. So it would be great to have a state backed insurance, like showing that, showing to farmers the government wisdom.

government is here to share the risk with you and will support you along the way. the farmers will believe if there is some disease happened for their agricultural livestock, the government would definitely help. So I think we need to build this trust and help to reduce uncertainty along the way and also to show the great ambitions about it rather than changing the premium payment year to 20 years to 15 years is definitely not helping with

image and uncertainty far more perceived.

speaker-0 (40:00.418)
Yeah, okay. the last topic then was the idea of, or the last idea is the government creating additional value for farmers so they plant now instead of continuing to delay. What type of things came up under that or what ideas are there?

speaker-1 (40:17.432)
Yeah, like I think definitely as we talked about before, like carbon biodiversity, payment for ecosystem service, this can be a very helpful mechanisms for government or for farmers that to get additional income and to make forest more appealing. And also farmers have a portfolio to manage. They have like multiple options and then maybe forest can be

Yeah, under different type of contract or different type of land use design that be integrated. So probably people are talking about we need a land use policy, we need a land use plan, which many people are talking about it nowadays. That can be a direction as well. So how to make it more appealing compared to other alternatives.

speaker-0 (41:10.594)
Yeah, we seem to have a very competitive land market. I think the UK has a land use policy where they're trying to highlight areas where they'd prefer certain things to happen. Where in Ireland, it's a bit of a scramble. Is it going to be the dairy farmer or the tillage man or the cattle rancher or the forestry that's going to get this land and then you're adding in solar and wind. So we seem to have a real struggle here.

And so that's the idea of land use. So am I right about that? That's really good. One other thing, I think we've covered a lot of that, but just to finish up on that, the research with the farmers, is there anything else that's key to this that I didn't ask you and that you think is worth mentioning at this stage, Jula?

speaker-1 (41:41.144)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (41:57.986)
I think it's been like personally, it's been such an interesting experience for me to learn about the history and then the culture here. Like especially the culture piece for me, like when I came here, like my background is based in business school. So I feel like it will be a, like you make the calculation finance right. And then you got people plans. And when I talk with people, I learned so much histories and how this identity formed. For example, I hear

stories about how in old days only like the big landlords have big farm and then they have some spare land, they will plant some trees. So like from the old days, like forest is associated with this kind of spare land, leisure land, you will put on trees, but other land you should be producing food, you know, you should be. So this kind of like a history and then like the famine. So I think Ireland has this in literature we call like a productivist, like

concepts suit very well that is very proud to producing food and land means a lot to them. Like in interview, like the farmer, one farmer is like, I will die for this land. Such a deep connections and the law, like he can name every part of the land. So during the interview also is really touching and great to hear all the stories, you know, like how much it means to them. And also,

really looking forward to see what happens next, given the change of the cap payments and given the aging distribution of farmers, what the next step will look like.

speaker-0 (43:38.03)
We never use the term indigenous people for people in Ireland, this cultural affinity with the land. This idea that fields and hedges and small fields have names and people associated with them and deep histories going back. Indeed, I have a friend in North Monaghan and he can tell me that this is the gap that O'Neill's army went through in, I'm going to say 1617 hundred, you know. So this oral history, it makes us more like an indigenous

tribe to some degree. So yeah, that kind of helps to explain how embedded our cultural affinity to the land and why it is such a big, big decision.

speaker-1 (44:18.516)
As well as like farmer will explain for them how to define a successful farmer. So one game may answer is like a successful farmers is who expand the land. So if you heritage the land from your father and you expand it and give more land to your son or daughter, then you are the successful one. And forest planting in this sense probably is not expanding the land. So

That's also very interesting. And Irish farmers are really good at knowing all the policies. When I'm talking with them, they know EU level policy, biodiversity, climate change. And then they're so good at calculating and the naming of the schemes. So I was really surprised. And then they're definitely an enterprise person, like a businessman doing. But have a great love to the land. I would describe them this way. Yeah.

speaker-0 (45:16.344)
Yeah, no, very good. Jula, thanks very much for joining me.

speaker-1 (45:19.586)
Thank you for having me.

speaker-0 (45:22.168)
So many thanks again to Julia for taking the time to speak with me. I hope you all enjoyed the conversation and please do share it with a friend. Talk to you soon.