England tree planting needs more grower support, say MPs

The government will fail to hit national tree planting targets unless it ramps up support to potential growers, a cross-party committee of MPs has warned.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) select committee said tree planting rates needed to treble to meet national targets of 30,000ha a year by 2025.

Hopes of meeting the target largely fall on Scotland, which is planting woodland at the rate of 12,000ha a year and targeting up to 18,000ha/year by 2025.

But England is falling well short of goals, with just 2,300ha of woodland planted in 2019-20. That is not even a quarter of the government’s 10,000ha annual target by the close of this parliament in 2024.

See also: Woodland Creation Offer: What farmers need to know

To speed things up, the Efra committee listed a number of recommendations for England within its Tree Planting report, published this week.  

Efra recommendations

• Comprehensive annual planting targets
• Better finance schemes
• More accurate mapping
• Create forestry jobs 
• Increase home-grown timber in construction

Setting annual targets for England’s contribution to the target would provide certainty to the sector, the report said.

But Natural England and the Forestry Commission should also complete detailed mapping work to ensure trees are planted in beneficial locations.

Planting trees must also be economically viable, the report added, suggesting the government had missed an opportunity to make forestry more financially appealing.

It pointed to a potential 10-year gap between the end of subsidies and the start of income generation from felling, which acted as a disincentive.  

The committee also called for an increase in the forestry sector workforce and a rise in the amount of home-grown timber used in construction.

The UK imports 80% of its timber, it pointed out, while the lack of sufficiently skilled workers was acting as a barrier to production.

The report called for the recruitment and training of at least 300 workers into woodland creation roles.  

Tenancy issues

The committee also raised concerns about the potential impact of tree planting on tenant farmers, who could be left out of any incentive schemes.

The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) said most farm tenants would be precluded from taking part in tree planting by their agreements, and land will be lost to landlords resuming control and planting woodland. 

Evidence that landlords are taking back land can be seen in the 3% reduction in Farm Business Tenancies recorded by Defra’s farm rent survey. 

“While it is entirely a decision for landowners, they should not be rewarded by public money for ousting a tenant and damaging the resilience of the sector,” the organisation insisted.

“One solution is to deny landowners access to the lucrative planting grants where the land was previously let to an agricultural tenant,” it said.