FORESTRY industry representatives and farming bodies have clashed again over whether farmers should have to compete with the business community for afforestation grants from the State and the European Union.
In a submission to the Government, the Irish Forestry Industry Chain (IFIC) said the farm lobby was being unreasonable. The group's chairman, Mr Dermot O'Brien, was at a press conference yesterday to give a qualified welcome to a new Government development scheme.
But the Irish Farmers' Association said its members simply could not compete.
Under the Government's strategic development plan, the total output from forestry should rise to more than £2 billion by the year 2035. The Government also aims to increase total the sector to 27.000, from 16,000 today.
"However, to achieve this target, the IFIC believes that close co operation between Government, industry and the farming community is necessary," the forestry lobby group said.
This would involve sustained levels of planting by both the public and private sector, assisted by State and EU grants. It should also mean an increase in the diversity of trees planted and a long term economic plan for the output from broadleaf planting.
"The IFA contention that EU and State grant aid for the afforestation programme in Ireland should be restricted to farmers and should exclude public and private sector companies (i.e. Coillte and private forestry companies) is totally unreasonable," the IFIC insisted.
"The wisdom of the IFA leadership in proposing such a radical and absurd, exclusive arrangement is rendering a great disservice to rural development in Ireland," said Mr Tommy McCabe, the IFIC's director.
In a statement last night, the IFA said if farmers were not given sole access to the grants, most of the cash from forestry would leave rural areas.
"It is not possible for farmers to compete in the land market with Coillte and private investors who are backed by massive grants and who are coming in and swallowing up vast amounts of land," said the farm body's forestry spokesman, Mr Padraic Divilly.
The EU forestry programme was a part of the reform of the CAP, and was intended as alternative use of land for farmers, he said.
