Elisabeth Champion
FARMERS looking to diversify their crops and take on a new industry have welcomed the news of a new Trees on Farm initiative.
To further assist the growth and development of the on-farm forest plantation sector, the State Government is investing $210,000 in the Green Triangle Forest Industries Hub (GTFIH), as part of its Trees on Farm election commitment.
The Trees on Farms GTFIH funding is aimed at helping to drive industry and/or landholder led forestry projects on farms, particularly in supporting on-ground works including silviculture and property planning advice.
The initiative will build an easy-to-use toolkit of expert advice to support and guide landholders in their commercial plantation investment aimed at demystifying the process.
It will arm landholders with all the information and tools needed to invest in forestry on their properties, including information on short rotation silviculture models, the Emissions Reduction Fund, taxation considerations, and overcoming barriers to harvesting and processing small woodlots, along with a spatial analysis of suitable lands for plantation forestry.
Minister for Forest Industries Clare Scriven said the initiative would quantify and promote the environmental and economic benefits of on-farm plantations and guide appropriate partnerships between timber processors and landholders.
“We all know that there is a worldwide demand and increasing demand for fibre, as well as domestic demand, we need structural timber as well as the other products that come from trees and we don’t have enough trees in the ground,” she said.
“So this is one important part of trying to give landholders the information they need to be able to incorporate timber into their enterprises.
“This is really about having an easy to use toolkit of expert advice, so that they can look at what the opportunities are to incorporate trees onto their farms, both for the environmental benefits and also for the economic benefits.
“Because there is such a demand, we need to be looking at every way that we can to increase the supply of timber.”
She said South Australia’s forestry sector contributes more than $860 million to the state’s economy each year.
Deputy chair of the Green Triangle Forest Industries Hub Laurie Hein welcomed the initiative.
“It’s so important that we are we educate farm foresters on growing timber,” he said,
“If you ask a farmer, what their wool returns, or what is their cattle return, what is their lamb return, pigs, crops ,etc, they know.
“But if you said ‘how much are you going to earn from planting trees?’, they’d have no idea, and so it becomes really, really important that we put measures in place that allows them to, in a transparent way, understand the returns from planting trees on their land.
“It certainly a really important that we get the right trees in the right place at the right scale, so it’s important that everybody understands where we should be planting those trees – obviously close to market would be a right choice, with reliable rainfall, there are a number of factors.”
