Dr Terry Mabbett considers the potential pitfalls of encouraging farmers to turn grazing land over to forestry.

TREE planting is shooting up the public and political agendas, but don’t run away with the idea that everyone thinks planting trees is a silver-bullet solution to all the country’s ills. One person not agreeing is Elizabeth Elder who runs a sheep and cattle farm in Northumberland with her husband Jake. In a recent issue of Farmers Weekly she sets out a compelling case for how the “increasing obsession with tree planting won’t feed hungry mouths”.

The CCC’s (Climate Change Committee’s) sixth Carbon Budget advocates that by 2035 we should have planted 186,000 ha of new woodlands with a further 105,000 ha of farmland shifting into energy crop production.

New tree plantings will mainly occupy grassland that currently supports livestock production, said Elder. However, despite the significant loss of land currently contributing to home-grown food production, agriculture is expected to produce the same amount of food per head, begging the question: “Is this realistic or a magic beans mystery?”

READ MORE: £15 million woodland creation grant opens for applications

The National Farmers Union (NFU) has described this latest missive from the CCC as “very disappointing” on the grounds that it overlooks the relatively good sustainability record of UK meat and dairy production, and how the industry is aiming to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

Elder is forthright in her claims about “the powers that be” not caring and simply wanting to reduce the land area used for meat and dairy production. Not because greenhouse gas emissions from UK livestock farming are especially bad, but because they want to use the land for carbon sequestration. The implication is that this is a public relations exercise to placate vocal lobbies, rather than all for the good and well-being of the UK population, including improvement of the environment and biodiversity therein.

Elder says DEFRA wants to use subsidy policies to encourage older farmers to retire and presumably be replaced by younger people brimming with ideas and enthusiasm about more sustainable livestock farming. At the NFU Conference in February 2020, DEFRA secretary George Eustice said some veteran farmers were “standing in the way of change” and “coasting along on state subsidies”, which understandably went down like a “trailer of pig manure”. The idea of a lump sum which would allow older farmers to “retire with dignity” was floated by the DEFRA secretary. For her part, Elder feels today’s farmers and livestock farming will be “shaded out” by Sitka spruce rather than being replaced with more sustainable livestock farming practices.

We are used to the open habitat fraternity slagging off Sitka spruce and other conifers because they are, for the most part, non-native evergreen trees and therefore automatically assumed to be bad for biodiversity, although that is certainly not the case.

Coal tits, siskins and crossbills are among the birds known to feed on Sitka spruce seed. Research in Scotland has shown the behaviour of native siskins and coal tits is influenced by the relative abundance of Sitka spruce cones. These birds were found more frequently feeding on supplementary food in gardens during non-mast years when Sitka spruce cones were in relatively short supply.

Elder’s concern is completely different to the usual diatribe about dark and satanic conifers. Whether you agree or not, her argument has validity and should be given consideration. What’s more, if the UK government wants to meet its tree-planting target, it will need farmers firmly on side, because it is they who will be doing most of the planting.

READ MORE: The ‘root’ to securing environmental support payments for landowners

If the UK is really expected to produce the same amount of food from a smaller land area, then the shortfall has got to come from somewhere – even more intensive livestock production, gene-edited and genetically modified farm animals and hormone-treated beef. Or perhaps even higher imports of meat products from the European Union. Post Brexit, Dutch customs has been confiscating ham sandwiches from UK truckers at the Hook of Holland; but in 2016, the UK imported 92,000 tonnes of ham and bacon from Holland constituting 38 per cent of total imports, which means they are almost certainly confiscating and destroying their own products.

As an English livestock farmer, Elder’s fear of pasture land converted to forest plantation in the short-to-medium term appears unfounded. You only have to look at tree-planting figures for England – conifer and broadleaf – to see that on present trends, there’s not a ghost of a chance of the government achieving its aims, especially in England. New plantings for England averaged out at 1,500 ha/annum for the period 2015–20. For conifers, average new planting over the same period was just 200 ha/year.

In his March 2020 Budget, Rishi Sunak said: “Over the next five years, we will plant around 30,000 hectares of trees [per year in the UK] and restore 35,000 hectares of peatland.” Nothing is impossible, but to achieve anywhere near that total area we need one of the Prime Minister’s famous ‘moonshots’, when all we seem to be getting on tree planting is ‘moonshine’. Even the peat restoration target could be in jeopardy if GB plant nurseries continue to be bound by ‘no soil’ and ‘no tree bark-based compost’ rules and regulations, if they want to export container-grown or bare-rooted plants into the European Union or merely into Northern Ireland.

READ MORE: Planting trees 'is not a quick fix for climate change', farmers warn

When such arguments rage, my thoughts turn back to the tropics and the long-established practice of integrating tree planting with foraging and grazing farm animals. Of course, there’s nothing to stop farmers and landowners doing the same here, and some do, like the owners of apple orchards who graze sheep under the trees. The only problem is that modern apple varieties are not the grand old trees from the 1950s and 1960s, but short, bush-like shrubs easily accessed by sheep which are apparently quite fond of apple buds, leaves, twigs, immature bark and even apple fruit.

In order to make silvopasture systems really worthwhile, livestock should be integrated with trees that produce staple food and food products. Of course we can’t do that here, but tropical communities can and do with trees like the coconut palm, otherwise known as the ‘Tree of Life’. Savvy coconut estate owners graze flocks of sheep and herds of cattle on cover crops comprising grass and legume mixes which they sow under the palm trees. Everybody wins, with livestock producing meat and dairy and the palm trees giving coconut water and coconut milk, copra (coconut kernel) and coconut oil. And not to forget coconut coir (fibre) to make compost and take the pressure off peat, with the shade-providing palm fronds doing their bit for carbon sequestration.

Indeed, coconut-based ecosystems offer exceptionally good possibilities for enhancing carbon sequestration through mixed cropping, with a wide variety of other crops including smaller trees, food crops, tubers and vines. The structure of the mature coconut palm, with all its leaves at the crown and plenty of space below, makes mixed-crop systems easy to design.

Interestingly, a 2017 study found that coconut intercropped with mango resulted in a total of 138.91 tonnes of carbon sequestered (above ground plus below ground soil carbon stock per hectare). This compared very favourably to sequestration of 98.2 tonnes of carbon on a coconut monocrop plantation. Perhaps climate warming might be no bad thing, if we can start to do these sorts of things here.

Forestry Journal remains dedicated to bringing you all the latest news and views from across our industry, plus up-to-date information on the impacts of COVID-19.

Please support us by subscribing to our print edition, delivered direct to your door, from as little at £75 for 1 year – or consider a digital subscription from just £1 for 3 months.

To arrange, follow this link: https://www.forestryjournal.co.uk/subscribe/

Thanks – and stay safe.