Australia’s Farm Forestry Assistant Program Supports Local Softwood Plantation Industry

Australia’s Forestry Minister Dave Kelly has launched the Farm Forestry Assistant program (FFAP) for 2022. The program supports farmers and landowner who wish to plant pine trees on their land. In his announcement Minister Kelly noted some of the other values of the program, “Farm forestry has other benefits such as carbon sequestration, water quality improvement, salinity mitigation, biodiversity improvement and achieving other landscape and aesthetic values.”

The FFAP was established in 2018 and provides successful applicants with free high-quality radiata pine seedlings from the Forest Products Commission’s West Manjimup Nursery to establish 20-to-50-hectare pine plantations on their properties. Since the program’s inception, 621,000 pine seedlings have been planted across an area of 463 hectares

As part of the program, the Forest Products Commission will provide technical advice to support establishing viable and productive plantations on farms and the West Manjimup Nursery and Seed Centre provides access to seedlings that come from the best genetic stock, helping to improve productivity and drought resilience.

Criteria addressing the location, scale, soil, access, and management of the plantations are in place to ensure that any resulting plantings have the capacity to help support Western Australia’s vibrant softwood timber industry.