PIRSA - New toolkit to help 'Trees on Farms'

Friday 22 Mar 2024

• Development of rotation silviculture – which explored current and alternative Tasmanian bluegum (hardwood) and radiata pine (softwood) management (silviculture) regimes. By considering expected time frames for harvest, the farm property plan, and intended markets, there is potential to match a range of forest management regimes to an individual farmer’s property and production system.

• Enhancing commercial viability via logistics and processes - includes a snapshot of Green Triangle softwood processors and hardwood woodchip exporters, tables of indicative softwood and hardwood harvest yields, indicative harvesting and haulage costs, approximate roading costs, and typical mill door prices.

• Spatial analysis of suitable land areas for trees into farming - Four plantation management regimes are modelled using the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM), and likely forest wood harvest volumes generated at thinning and final harvest across the project area are shown on the map.

• Comparison of the Emissions Reduction Fund methods - primarily compared the ACCU Scheme plantation forestry method (Schedule 1), which focuses on new plantation forests for commercial harvest, with the farm forestry method, which incorporates both harvest plantation projects for saleable forest products and permanent planting projects. Among the conclusions, the analysis suggests the plantation forestry method is likely to be a better option if a plantation is established for harvesting wood products.

• Development of taxation treatment in a farming framework - provides a distilled account of trees, taxation and superannuation and comprehensive appendices with information sourced from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and other sources. The analysis does not seek to provide specific treatment and outcomes but rather demonstrate what may be possible subject to a range of considerations.