Agriculture: Forestry
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to provide funding for agroforestry support to include (a) multi-species planting and (b) increased tree planting densities to enable woodland systems suitable for (i) pigs and (ii) poultry.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
Our in-field agroforestry offers under the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes allow flexibility for land managers to decide on tree species and densities that suit their objectives, to realise the multiple benefits that trees provide in the farming landscape. Land managers are able to establish and maintain a wide range of eligible woodland and fruit tree species, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eligible-tree-species-elm-agroforestry-action. Land managers can also be paid a species diversity bonus for planting 5 or more species of tree, to help improve the resilience of agroforestry systems.
Our ELM in-field agroforestry offers allow for a range of planting densities. Under the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme, land managers can establish and maintain in-field agroforestry systems with an average of 30-130 trees per hectare on low sensitivity land. Our Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier offers will pay land managers to maintain in-field agroforestry systems up to an average of 400 trees her hectare.
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