Farm Forestry Model
What Is the Farm Forestry Model?
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The Farm Forestry Model represents the accumulated knowledge and experience of NZ Farm Forestry Association members — practical, high performing farmers and rural landowners, with over 50 years of growing trees for profit (and pleasure) as an integral part of their long term commitment to sustainable land management.
In fact, we're proud to say Association members have been practising integrated land use strategies for decades, long before the concepts of "sustainability" and "environmental sustainability" achieved their current prominence.
Today, trees have an even more vital role to play in offsetting the impacts of climate change.
The farm forestry model - an introduction
Patrick Milne
There is no question that as a group, farm foresters are at the top of
the list when it comes to sustainable land management practitioners and
practices.
Farm forestry offers many environmental and economic gains, including
soil conservation, improved water quality, shelter, shade, amenity,
enhanced indigenous biodiversity, stock fodder, carbon sequestration as
well as a more profitable land use on much of our lower productivity
farmland. In addition there are the many advantages of wood as a
renewable, carbon sequestering, low energy material which can also be
used as fuel or chemical raw material.
Practices which might appear today to be common sense have not always
enjoyed this status. They are the result of over 50 years of trial and
error, discussion groups, field days, research and conferences - in
other words membership of the NZFFA. However these are not universally
accepted today, as record low new tree planting rates indicate.
Sustainable land management
Farm forestry is synonymous with sustainable land management and over
the years there have been some very notable practitioners such as Neil
Barr, Joll Hosking and Jim Pottinger. Today there are in excess
of half a million hectares of land sustainably managed by farm
foresters. The NZFFA has always recognised excellence in farm
forestry with its annual farm forester and sustainability awards. Many
of these award winners have also won other environmental awards such as
those promoted by Ballance.
In recent years, awareness of environmental issues has increased and
climate change has entered the political arena. In this new world
of carbon footprints, carbon neutrality and climate change,
sustainability and sustainable land management have become the new
paradigm. Listening to today’s politicians and policy makers, one could
be forgiven for thinking that sustainability and sustainable land
management are new concepts and practices discovered by them.
Modesty and reluctance
How has the situation arisen where on one hand sustainable land
management is seen as something new and on the other hand farm
foresters have been practising it for decades? There are several
reasons, but very much to the fore is the fact that farm foresters and
the NZFFA have been very modest and reluctant in promoting themselves
and their practices to the outside world. To many this is
surprising, particularly as amongst farm foresters there has always
been a willingness to share and discuss their ideas and practices.
This is not to say there has not been publicity. The NZFFA publishes
the Tree Grower
and numerous other publications, but at the end of the day they tend to
be only read by farm foresters – in effect we are preaching to the
converted. The nett result of all this is that farm forestry is
really not considered to be part of mainstream New Zealand agriculture.
A simple and clear message
Can this be changed and if so how? It probably can be improved on, but
before any change happens, farm foresters and the NZFFA need have a
simple and clear message of what farm forestry is. Therefore the
NZFFA has set about developing what is currently being called the Farm
Forestry Model. The model is in effect what farm foresters do and
how they do it – something that farm foresters take for granted but it
can be like a foreign language to non farm foresters.
Here the NZFFA is documenting farm forestry as it practised
throughout the country, available from the dropdown menu above. If we can
develop a simple clear farm forestry message, support it with good
practical examples and make it easy to access, we may succeed in
promoting farm forestry to a wider audience.
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