Farmers need more support from the government to plant the trees necessary to meet the UK’s climate targets, ministers have been told, as they consider wide-ranging changes to farming payments after Brexit.
Tree-planting is expensive, difficult and requires patience as the trees take years or even decades to yield commercial returns. Farmers and green campaigners are concerned that they will be left out of government plans to bring in a new interim subsidy system – called the sustainable farming incentive – to tide farmers over between the end of European subsidies this year, and the phasing in of new environmental land management contracts
The Soil Association is calling for clarity on how the sustainable farming incentive will encourage tree-planting, and also urging the government to include agroforestry – where trees are grown among or alongside crops, rather than in separate plantations – in its plans.
Most of the UK’s tree strategy is focused on planting new forests, or extending existing woodlands. But where trees can be planted alongside crops, they provide additional benefits such as more wildlife habitats, reduced water use and better carbon dioxide retention in the soil.
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