Trees and forests represent an attractive opportunity to create an additional enterprise on the farm that can fit in well with existing farm activities.
They can deliver a range of benefits at farm level including playing a significant role in addressing our climate challenges. As part of the recent Farming for a Better Climate 2025: Practical and Emerging Solutions Conference, organised by the Teagasc Climate Centre and Teagasc Signpost Programme, Acting Head of Teagasc Forestry Development Department, Tom Houlihan provided a brief overview of the role of forests in capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide and thereby positively influencing farm emission profiles.
Ireland has committed to reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and enhancing carbon sequestration (capture and storage) through a range of measures in the agricultural, land use, land use change and forestry sectors. Enhanced delivery of new forests, sustainable management of existing forests and increased use of harvested wood products are key measures to contribute to these objectives.
Trees are very effective in capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) gas from the atmosphere as they grow, converting it into organic matter through photosynthesis, and storing it in their biomass (trunks, branches, leaves, and roots). Dead organic matter, such as deadwood, leaves and branches, decomposes and contributes to soil organic carbon. Forests store carbon in five primary pools in the forest: in above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass, litter, deadwood, and soil carbon. The amount of carbon stored in any one of these pools changes over time. Harvested wood products represents an additional and important carbon pool. In this regard, most of the carbon is retained when harvested trees are converted to durable wood products (e.g. roofing, flooring and furniture)
Estimating carbon storage rates in your forest
Currently, there are over 24,000 private forest owners, with over 19,500 classed as farmers. To assist forest owners in estimating carbon capture rates in their forest, Teagasc, in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Forest Environmental Research and Services Ltd (FERS) developed an online Forest Carbon Tool which is updated as new data becomes available.
The tool provides a user-friendly way to get indications of potential levels of carbon removal in various forest scenarios and through important pathways that help address our key climate change challenges. These include net carbon removals at forest level, removals through harvested wood products and emission avoidance through the substitution of appropriate timber assortments for fossil fuel energy.
Users of the Forest Carbon Tool can select from a dropdown list of current planting options under the Forestry Programme (called Forest Types) or otherwise from selected forest species or species groups. They can then select an appropriate soil type and, upon hitting the calculate button, will get indicative values for the following:
- The average (mean) yearly CO2 sequestration rate (t/CO2-eq/ha/yr) – this is the average sequestration for a given forest type and calculated over 2 forest cycles (or rotations). This allows comparison of carbon capture rates between different forest types with different rotation lengths.
- The mean cumulative CO2 emission/removals is the CAP (t/CO2-eq/ha). This cumulative value provides an indicator of the maximum potential sequestration capacity that a selected forest type can achieve.
As we know that the sequestration levels do not stay constant but change significantly over time, the tool also graphically displays the annual sequestration trends over the two forest cycles. While growing forests capture and store CO2 during active growth, activities such as forest thinning and harvesting give rise to emissions which are also taken into account. The sequestration values provided are indicative and not intended to provide definitive or absolute forest data or for processes related to forest carbon valuation or potential trading platforms.
Carbon Farming Framework
The development of voluntary forest carbon markets is at an early stage in Ireland. Carbon Farming is a term that recognises the capacity of farmers, landowners and foresters, through appropriate land management practices, to remove carbon from the atmosphere, or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the soil.
The Irish Government, through the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), is developing a Carbon Farming Framework to certify and reward landowners for carbon removal and emission reduction activities. This framework will align with the new EU Carbon Removal Certification Regulation, which sets rules and criteria for public and private schemes to ensure transparency and credibility.