Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS) grants must be made available to forestry growers to support the purchase of basic equipment to harvest plantations, the Irish Forestry Owners (IFO) group has said.

A severe shortage of drivers and fewer forestry harvesting machines have significantly restricted harvesting capacity within the sector, the IFO claimed.

IFO chair Derek McCabe said forestry owners were finding it extremely difficult to get contractors to harvest small plantations.

“This is a serious problem for forestry owners, especially those with ash dieback who are looking to take out plantations,” McCabe said.

Just 1,500ha of ash is in the pipeline to be cut under the Reconstitution Ash Dieback Scheme, but around 15,000ha need to be taken out in total, he explained.

Much of the ash is in small plantations of 2ha to 3ha, and it is extremely difficult to get contractors to take on jobs of such limited scale, McCabe added.

“A lot of contractors are not interested in going into a plantation of less than 10ha, and sometimes it is not even economic to take the ash out even if you have a bigger area,” he said.

Harvesting heads

Introducing a TAMS grant for the purchase of forestry harvesting heads – which could be fitted to diggers or excavators – could be a way of addressing the current problems, McCabe maintained.

“It would give control back to the forest owners,” he said.

“Making small-scale harvesters available to forestry owners would also mobilise a lot of farm forestry, which is often in the most backward and land-locked part of the farm.

“These plantations might not be harvested otherwise,” the IFO chair maintained.

Availability of drivers an issue in forestry

Galway-based contractor Robert Brennan conceded that keeping drivers was an issue for forestry contractors at the moment.

“There are drivers available, but getting drivers that are able to maximise the output of the machine and the crop is the problem because contractors are paid by production not by the hour,” he said.

“The difference between a good and a bad driver is the same as night and day. To buy a harvesting outfit of any description you’re talking a lot of money, so we need to have those machines going for 2,000 to 2,500 hours a year to break even,” Brennan said.

Meanwhile, Wicklow contractor Pat Doyle admitted that he is reluctant to take on ash dieback plantations as it is “awkward and costly work”. The small ash is hard on the harvesting heads and resulted in a lot more breakages than normal work.

Contractors need the clearance grant and the value of the timber to make it viable, he claimed.