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HIGHLAND FORESTRY: AN EVALUATION
Author(s) -
Hampson S. F.
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.157
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1477-9552
pISSN - 0021-857X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1477-9552.1972.tb01427.x
Subject(s) - afforestation , unemployment , acre , economics , investment (military) , agricultural economics , offset (computer science) , value (mathematics) , business , natural resource economics , forestry , geography , agroforestry , economic growth , environmental science , political science , machine learning , politics , law , computer science , programming language
Almost 20,000 acres of new forest are planted in Highland Scotland each year. At present high interest rates this investment is unlikely to be commercially profitable; the creation of employment in an area of high unemployment is held, however, to justify Government help. These opposing considerations may be quantified though the time‐scale of forestry is so long that figures are necessarily tentative. Current levels of costs and prices suggest that the present value of projected forest is about ‐65 per acre; current rates of change of costs and prices suggest a figure of ‐ 50. As an offset to this shortfall, a continued programme of afforestation of 20,000 acres annually would lead to the creation of an additional 400 jobs in 1985. Larger employment gains will only come about when the bulk of unemployment in the area has already been absorbed by the growth in labour demand attributable to pre‐1970 afforestation.