Using Ireland as a case study, this study examines the economic drivers of the farm afforestation decision for individual farms. Farm incomes and characteristics are observed across the distribution of livestock farmers, using a longitudinal dataset. Potential agricultural and forest income streams are generated and compared in a life-cycle theoretical framework, while the inclusion of attitudinal survey data in the analysis is shown to contribute significantly to the understanding of the planting decision. The study suggests that there is a cohort of younger farmers on larger holdings who might plant if potential forest income is greater than their agricultural income, but we also find that there is a cohort of older farmers on smaller holdings that will never plant, and for whom negative cultural attitudes are stronger than economic drivers. The study concludes that a ‘one size fits all’ programme based solely on financial incentives may not be the most appropriate means to encourage further farm afforestation and suggests that more targeted approaches may be necessary to nuance incentives to increase afforestation rates and facilitate the use of afforestation as an agricultural greenhouse gas mitigation mechanism.

本研究以爱尔兰为例，研究了单个农场的农场造林决策的经济驱动因素。使用纵向数据集，可观察整个牲畜养殖者分布的农场收入和特征。在生命周期的理论框架中产生并比较了潜在的农业和森林收入流，而在分析中包括态度调查数据被证明对理解种植决策有重要贡献。该研究表明，如果潜在森林收入大于其农业收入，则有一群拥有较大土地的年轻农民可能会种植，但我们也发现，有一群拥有较小土地的老年农民将永远不会种植，并且对于消极的文化态度比经济驱动力强。