This report discusses research conducted in the eastern Darling Downs of southern Queensland and the northern tablelands of New South Wales covering:
• landholder attitudes to farm forestry
• the development of a whole-farm financial model – the Australian Farm Forestry Financial Model – that evaluates the financial returns and feasibility of forestry within the farm business
• the construction and evaluation of regional farm forestry case studies
• the development of a multi-objective decision-support system (MODSS) for evaluation of forestry options from a regional and farm perspective.
The project addresses an identified need for additional financial information and decision-support systems for farm forestry at the individual property as well as catchment and regional level. The research provides farmers and policy makers with a multipurpose decision support system (DSS) that will allow comprehensive assessment of the suitability, sustainability and profitability of alternative forestry options in relation to agricultural enterprise in a variety of farm systems.