Farmers in England are being encouraged to convert farmland to woodland by the UK government through two connected schemes which launched in January 2017 – The Woodland Creation grant and The Woodland Carbon Fund.
The schemes aim to encourage new woodland cover to improve biodiversity, flood control and contribute to meeting future carbon reduction budgets. They will also contribute towards a long-term goal of 12% woodland cover in England by 2060. The government is actively promoting the scheme in advance of the January 2018 application round and have temporarily lowered the minimum area of planting required from 30ha to 10ha, which suggests uptake of the grants may be below expectations so far.
