Timberbiz Feature of the Week

Who will put trees back on farms now?

Last June the Federal Government dissolved the national network of 19 Private Forestry Development Committees (PFDCs), regional groups whose key objective was to put trees back into over-cleared farm land.
The philosophy behind PFDCs aligns with the concept of 'teaching someone to catch a fish, rather than giving them a fish' - in this case helping farmers to implement self-funded, profitable tree-growing options, rather than dispensing one-off lumps of money to plant trees.

Because of this approach, the PFDC program ran on a shoe-string budget, using just $1.4 million of Federal money to run 19 groups covering the nation. This is in stark comparison to Federal programs like Natural Heritage Trust which cost $2.5 billion and Caring for Our Country ($2.25 billion).

Governments have long recognised that most farms have been extensively cleared of trees and other native vegetation.

While clearing was a nation-building necessity to feed a growing population and earn export income, even farmers admit a host of environmental problems have emerged.
Dryland salinity, soil erosion, loss of habitat and biodiversity and, perhaps most crucial in a world alarmed about global warming, a loss of long-term carbon storage in trees and perennial vegetation are all pressing issues.

In 2002, the Wentworth Group of concerned scientists called for significant re-vegetation of farmland - up to 34% of farms to be put under trees - noting it would result in economic and environmental improvements.

More than 60% of Australia's 769 million hectare land mass is under agricultural production. In other words, the majority of land where re-vegetation can occur is privately owned farmland.

Around 70% of the 149 million hectare national forest estate is privately managed, much of this being native forest on farms.

The formal network of national forest reserves (23 million hectares) and public multiple use forests (9.4 million hectares) have little scope for future expansion, relative to what could be achieved on private land given the right incentives.

Given these statistics, it is glaringly obvious that the focus for re-vegetating cleared landscapes, and the improved management of native trees has to be on private farmland.

Yet convincing farmers to re-vegetate is not an easy task. Droughts, fluctuating commodity prices and declining terms of trade means that farmers need compelling reasons to spend money planting trees. In most cases, that reason must be clear evidence that trees will contribute positively to the farm business - either through direct income from wood or carbon sales, or indirect income from stock shelter, improved farm environmental function or higher land values. Research has shown that planting 10-20% of a farm to trees can lead to improvements in agricultural productivity.
Moreover, there is considerable scope to use low quality wood from farm plantations to generate bioenergy, leading to reduced fossil fuel use, making a positive contribution to climate change, and all without using valuable food sources such as grains.

To date, most re-vegetation on farms has been funded by the taxpayer through environmental programs such as Natural Heritage Trust, National Landcare Program and the new replacement, Caring for Our Country.

These programs have produced some worthwhile environmental projects but will never generate the scale of revegetation scientists such as the Wentworth Group are demanding. Moreover, they will forever be dependant on the public purse.

The solution to this problem is to assist farmers to develop farm re-vegetation options that provide demonstrable and quantifiable benefits to the farm business. This is the only way we will move away from small scale, ad hoc, piecemeal, publicly funded re-vegetation approach, to a model that delivers broad scale adoption and is mostly funded by farmers themselves.

Farmer funded models require an intimate knowledge of local farming systems and identification of tree growing options that can be integrated onto farms with minimal disruption to agricultural income.

In 1996, the PFDCs were established with precisely this strategy in mind. Their objective was to deliver re-vegetation and forest management options for farms which worked on a significant scale, and would contribute to regional forestry investment, employment and improved environmental performance.

Getting farmers to adopt new tree-based farming systems is a long term strategy. It will not happen in the typical political timeframe of an election cycle, or even within a decade.

Yet, since their inception, PFDCs have assisted numerous farmers in regional Australia to grow more trees on their farms, to better manage native forests and, most importantly, to understand how re-introducing trees onto farms can provide multiple benefits.
Farm forestry now represents around 8% of the total national planted forest estate. Our understanding of what is needed to increase this level of planting on farms has improved dramatically, thanks largely to PFDCs working at the most basic level with farmers.

PFDCs have amassed and passed on to farmers a wealth of detailed regionally-specific technical and economic knowledge - knowledge that does not exist in metropolitan-based Government departments and which can only be delivered with the local credibility that building a network with farmers and State Government agencies can deliver.

The corporate knowledge embodied in the PFDC network is immense, and not matched by any other State or Federal agency that deals with commercial forestry on private land.
The timing of the decision to cease PFDC support, with a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) set to commence in 2010 - and forest carbon sinks being a key plank in the Government's fight against climate change - is difficult to reconcile.

Over the past decade, there has never been a more pressing need to advise farmers on how to best integrate trees into their farms than now. This need will escalate should agriculture - which accounts for 15% of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions - be brought to account under the CPRS.

There is no-one to fill the void left by PFDCs. State Government forestry agencies long ceased giving advice to farmers on tree planting, as they became corporate Government entities that must return a profit to treasury. Likewise, State Departments of Agriculture have cut farm forestry extension staff, and other forestry research agencies have been rationalised.

Environmental organisations and agencies cannot perform the task. Their expertise is in environmental rehabilitation, but with little experience advising farmers on commercially attractive re-vegetation solutions for farms. Moreover, they lack the commercial forestry networks required to bring tree-growing projects to fruition.
The long-held vision of seeing farms with significant tree cover, producing multiple benefits for the environment, the farm business and combating climate change appears to have suffered a major set-back.

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