Farmer Tree-Planters In Conference

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30419, 18 April 1964, Page 8

Farmer Tree-Planters In Conference

Farmer tree-planters from Northland to Invercargill gathered in Marlborough this week for the eighth annual meeting of the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association and an associated programme of field trips. The association has a membership of about 2500 in 33 affiliated associations, and, of these, 15 are in the South Island with 940 members. Two more associations will be formed shortly—one of these at Nelson.

As farm forestry is a recog-) nised part of the New Zea- : ■ land timber production pat-1 I tern with a Government-| isponsored loan scheme aimed) , at soliciting the support of I farmers in meeting the coun-) ) try’s future timber require-) ments, it was natural . thatl much of the discussion should| revolve around aspects of Government support of farm (forestry and the ultimate fin- ; ancial returns from farm forrestry, but there were also re- : freshing people present who admitted that they never exI pected to make any money i out of trees but were interested in trees because of their love of trees and enjoyment of trees while they were growing. Felled timber was a dead thing, one of these men said in stating the case for more emphasis at annual conferences of the association on amenity planting. A Lower Northland delegate took, perhaps, a more intermediate point of view in stating that the aim of tree growers in his area was to grow trees for shelter of stock and in the interests of growth of grass, to provide farm timber with any surplus availtable for sale, and simply because they loved trees. But tree planting is also a ) business to many farmers. There was a distinct feeling that in some respects, par(ticuarly in returns, they are not getting a fair deal and there was some concern that the image of tree planting on farms was not a favourable )one. It was emphasised that I farmers’ bankers frequently | did not look very, favourably ) on it as a farm enterprise. , Mr Neill Barr, a former president and a founder of the farm forestry movement, who comes from Kaipara, said that he had 300 acres of trees on his property, mostly pruned and doing nicely. In the last year he recalled that they had contributed £2500 gross to his farm accounts from thinnings. Where trees u were conveniently placed to

roads and to markets he indicated that he placed them second to dairying and able to net £lO an acre per year.

The president of the association. Mr R. W. Smith, of Te Hau, Matahiwi, Wairarapa, said he would venture to say that £lOO spent on planting round homesteads and outbuildings for shelter, shade and aesthetic considerations could be worth £lOOO in the event of a property being sold. At the very basis of farm tree planting, there was some concern about the stock being made available by nurserymen to farm foresters in Otago and Southland. The South Island vice-president of the association, Mr D. D. Aiderton, said that investigations had shown that few plantations established' in this area since the war were not suffering from malformation and the major reason for this seemed to be that for some reason nursery stock was being presented in a different form to what it was before the war.

The point at issue was the

root structure of the young trees, and Mr Aiderton said that in some cases trees had been so badly transplanted in the nursery, probably with inexperienced labour, that roots were actually growing vertically,Earlier Mr Smith told the conference that there had been reports from the South Island of poorly prepared tree stock and also of faulty techniques adopted by some contract tree planters. ."We should see that their seed sources are from the Forest Service—which would be the best, guarantee for the loan scheme,” said Mr Smith. "I would also advocate expanding the Royal Horticultural Institute N.D.H. examination by placing emphasis on the growing and care of forest trees.” He indicated that a meeting was due to be held in Wellington on this subject in July. Mr Smith described the Governments incentive loan scheme to encourage farm wood-lot planting as only a limited success. He mentioned that plantings so far under the proposals were far short of the 8000-acre target for farm forestry planting, and suggested that the main reasons why it was not taking on were lack of financial incentive because of high rates of annual charges from the outset, the poor image of forestry as a profitable land use in the eyes of farmers, and partly because of low stumpage prices. Mr Smith said that the Government must concede something if the scheme was to live up to its name and he said that if it was a failure the Government would have to face up to purchasing more land for planting, not always close to metropolitan areas, and provide further staffing, roading and •so on to make good the shortcomings in farm plantings.

Clear indications were given to the conference by the Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) and others that some revision of the scheme was in view. When a Marlborough association remit proposing compounding of interest charges on loans and delaying these payments until earnings were received from the wood lots was being considered, the president indicated that recommendations had already been made to the minister on this subject. Similarly when another Marlborough remit proposing the extension of the maximum plantable area under the loan scheme from 20 acres a year or 100 in five years to 50 acres a year or 250 acres in five years to give the scheme more flexibility was brought forward, it was

reported that this was also the subject of a recommendation at ministerial level; and it was hoped that this aspect would be altered in the course of amendment of the scheme as a whole. The establishment of a timber producers’ board to protect timber growers! interests was suggested by Mr Barr at a meeting of the council of the association. In support of his proposal, Mr Barr cited the benefits the sheep industry had derived from the formation of the Meat Board and said that he did not think the timber producers would get anywhere until they also had a floor price for their products. Mr Barr said that the French forestry industry, which was in a wonderful position, had a board and it received a levy from millers which was used for planting. He said he thought the time was ripe to suggest to the Forest Service that the idea of a board be taken up with the Minister.

Also as a step in protecting farmer interests as major users of round timber, the council decided to seek the co-operation of the Dominion Council of Federated Farm-

ers in obtaining representation on the Timber Preservation Authority. It will ask the council of Federated Farmers to receive a deputation at its next meeting. A thoughtful contribution to the proceedings was made by Mr Shand, who suggested that more, needed 'to be learned about where to plant trees and in what quantities, so that plantings were not made willy nilly and in the end economic markets were not available for all the production. Once the soundness of planting in an area had been shown he suggested that the Government scheme would have to be such as to make it possible for farmers to put suitable country for planting into trees in anticipation of a return in 25 to 30 years.