‘Mandatory replanting should be axed’: future of forestry
Balancing forestry with a 21-cow suckler herd, Derek and Yvonne Mccabe are building for the future — but they say more consultation is needed for farmers
Just 35 years ago, Derek and Yvonne Mccabe from Mount Nugent in Co Cavan hadn’t a single acre of land to their name. Fast forward to 2024, and the couple has been crowned RDS Teagasc Farm Forestry Award winners, having built up over 200 acres of forestry and another 50 acres of farmland.
Off-farm, Derek is managing director of a civil engineering business and chairperson of the Irish Forest Owners (IFO) group.
“When asked about how many acres I have, I usually say we have 600,000 trees planted,” Derek told the
“We established here with general drystock farming. The idea was to build up an economically viable unit for some of the family members if ever they wanted to continue farming. That’s the aspiration probably for most farmers ultimately.
One of the routes the Mccabes chose to achieve that was forestry. It was an enterprise they believed could work, thanks to the grants available.
“We were making a few pound off-farm and when you looked at the sums back at that time in the late 90s-early 2000s, there were 100pc grants for planting, fencing and money for maintenance.
“My sums at the time told me it was the same as investing money and getting a 6pc return, so it was a no-brainer — not to mention the taxfree element of everything along the way. For a number of years, we kept buying parts of the forestry and planting, building up what I would call an economically viable unit.
“I grew up on a dairy farm and was one of nine, so there was no room for me to remain on the holding at home. For one reason or another, I couldn’t go through life without having land. The bug was in me.”
The Mccabes, who have three children, Emma, Calum and Alanna, owe part of their farming successes to their ability to diversify their business
“When the downturn came in 2008-2010, things started to go south and other sources of income we had started to dry up. Fortunately, forestry was still paying well,” Derek said.
“We came to first thinning then and we went down the road of accessing some LEADER funding. Rather than selling our forestry thinnings for energy or pulpwood — a bit like the beef producer, you become a price taker — so we decided to add value to our timber by going into firewood.
“We established a good, simple firewood business and the key to our success is we have the same customers we had nearly since the day we started. We’re doing it right, seasoning our timber, bringing it down to the proper moisture content.
“On the farming side, I suppose we were really always farming the grants, in the environmental schemes, and we built up a good single farm payment. But we could see more and more squeeze was coming.
“We weren’t making the money off the back of the animal. We went down the suckler route and then we went down the organic route. We’re six months off full organic certification for our 21-cow suckler herd.”
They are about three-quarters of the way toward a pedigree Angus herd, which Derek said works well alongside the forestry.
“We find that the firewood business works very well alongside the organics, in so far as bedding is possibly one of the single biggest expenses in organic farming, so it’s a circular economy where we’re able to use all of the waste from the firewood.
“It saves us having to buy in bedding and we have good, comfortable cattle in the process. We bought into a sawmill because we had a lot of large timber, and it would annoy me to put good, utilisable timber into firewood.
“We have a lot of larch and we saw the problems arising in the fencing industry where the treatment all changed, and larch doesn’t need any treatment so we process it into posts.
“One of the best customers I have for firewood is myself. We have two houses on the farm, so we’re fully self-sufficient in terms of heat. It’s a great start before we ever sell anything. It’s a self-catering house and then our own house.”
Derek is a 2009 Nuffield Ireland scholar, and has also served as the organisation’s director.
“My interest in forestry brought me into the Nuffield farming scholarship, in so far as my topic looked at carbon sequestration and forestry,” he explained.
“A farmer should be able to account for carbon within their own farmgate. A dairy farmer with a big carbon footprint should be able to offset within their farmgate, and if they are fortunate enough to have a surplus they should be able to trade it.
“The people who are going to benefit from the way I see the policy formation (currently) are the traders — the lads in the bowler hats, in the accountancy practices — they are going to be the winners. The ordinary farmer on the ground will be the loser.
“Forestry solves every problem if you stop to think about it — water quality, biodiversity, carbon, it gives us timber for building and heat. We have this habit in Ireland of planting forestry then closing the gate and walking away. You can go back in and have food production in forestry, all you have to do is look at the Scandinavians and the way they run their businesses.
“They can grow fungi, berries and they also embrace forestry as a lifestyle. In Finland for example, at the weekend, they will leave their cities and move out to the forestry and embrace the wellness aspect.”
As chair of the Irish Forest Owners group, Derek wants to see a new government agency established to handle forestry in Ireland.
“We’ve been shouting for an Idalike structure to run forestry, take it away from the Department and put it into an authority, which looks at it right through from planting to harvest,” he said.
“There’s a world of plantations in areas of the country that will never be taken out because they are so backward. People think we shouldn’t be cutting down trees but we’re building with them and it’s import substitution, concrete substitution and, of course, when you harvest you by law have to replant and the cycle continues. It’s totally sustainable.
“The problems we have had over the past 10 years won’t come to light until 30 years time. The 10 missed
‘It is unfair to ask a farmer to make a decision for every generation that comes after them’
years of planting that we have gone through now will become a massive issue. Nobody in Government thinks any further than one election to the next.
“I don’t agree with the obligation to replant land after harvest. Currently, when I make a decision to plant land, I make a decision for every generation that comes after me. That’s a huge decision for most people and I’d say it’s putting most people off.
“When it comes to replanting land, nine times out of 10 you’ll want to replant it anyway, whether the law was there or not. It is unfair to ask a farmer to make a decision for every generation that comes after them, particularly when we have such a connection to the land, and given our history with the land over the past couple of hundred years. That’s still in the psyche of people.”
Reconstitution scheme
In 2013, the Mccabe family first noticed ash dieback in their forestry plantations.
“That’s when the Government decided that anywhere that had it, they were going to go in, take it out and burn it. It was a bit like foot and mouth,” Derek said.
“It was a ludicrous decision. The horse had bolted and the disease was in the country. They realised they were fighting a losing battle and the schemes changed, where you were giving money for taking it out and replanting.
“Most farmers wanted to get the trees out and get on with business but the Government dragged its heels — that’s almost 11 years ago and we’re still talking about it today. There’s about 15,000ha of ash as we speak that’s in the ground, and needs to be taken out. There’s only about 1,500ha that has been given approval or is in the pipeline.
“Some people have 2ha or 3ha out the back of their farm, and they can’t get a harvester in to do it because they decimated that industry over the past 10 years, so you can’t even get anyone to do it. It’s not even economically viable. We’re trying to get the Government to change the rules but they’re not for turning. They’re very rigid.
“I had three plantations with it and right up to this year, we took out our last batch of it. I won’t see the rest of my money, €2,500, for another 5-6 years. They decided they’re going to hold onto it until everything is replanted and established.”