We have recently warned that carbon captured through tree planting risks joining a long list of Welsh natural resources which could be sold to outside companies and individuals seeking to make a profit, writes Montgomeryshire FUW president Iwan Pughe Jones.

The problem is that land which already holds carbon or is already planted with trees has no value in terms of the current carbon market as it is treated as a baseline.

However, the value of the additional carbon captured on land newly planted with trees could be worth as much as £8,000 per hectare over the course of a carbon trading agreement.

Although this period could be many decades, bringing the annual value down significantly.

While there are opportunities for farmers in this new market, Wales need only look at the past impacts of afforestation to see the potential for economic, social and environmental devastation as a result of inappropriate tree planting.

The GVA per hectare of Welsh commercial forestry is a fraction of that of agriculture, while agriculture employs around 150 per cent more people per hectare than commercial forestry.

However, in many cases we are not talking about commercial forestry.

We are talking about broadleaf tree species that currently have a negligible economic value except for the sale of their carbon.

The sale of carbon in this way risks undermining the ability of farms, Welsh agriculture or Wales as a whole to become carbon neutral.

When a piece of farmland is sold and planted with trees it is no longer officially available to the agricultural sector for offsetting emissions.

If someone plants trees on Welsh land and sells the carbon to a multinational company based in California, then this does nothing to help Wales reduce its carbon footprint.