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Young ash trees on Liam Beechner's farm in Clonakilty. Speaking at the National Organic Training Skillnet’s agroforestry conference recently, Eugene Curran from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) gave an overview of Ireland’s agri-forestry scheme, which was launched in 2015 and has now been adopted by over 60 Irish farms on a range of soil types and farming systems. The key difference between agroforestry and regular afforestation is that landowners are allowed to graze animals and harvest fodder under this option. The premium lasts just five years compared to 15 fo...

SHARING OPTIONS: Gavin Lynch with some of his Shorthorn herd, combines dairy and sheep farming with hazel growing in this agroforestry section of Hells Kettle Organic Farm, Donard, Co Wicklow. Forestry is identified as one of the land uses that has “high-level targets for 2030” in the recently launched draft agri-food strategy 2030. The strategy contains a number of positive objectives for forestry to “increase afforestation and double the sustainable production of biomass from forests by 2035”. Other goals emphasise the role of forestry in enha...