How does forestry comply with the GAEC legislation?

SIR – I am compelled to respond to Stuart Goodall of Confor. 
I am aware of the people who sat on the well-named Woodland Expansion Advisory Group. They were conned into believing that you had not reached your target of 10,000 hectares annually by 2010, when in fact 138,000 acres of new planting had been carried out in 2012. 
James Hutton calculated 100,000 hectares taken out of agriculture would only drop agriculture production by 1%. If you take out grades six and seven and concrete and roads, you would probably find that forestry represents approx 35% of that useable area for agriculture.
It would be interesting to know how many hectares of new planting was approved in 2016 until the first of this month, and how many hectares are receiving Basic Payments and by grade.
I fail to understand how forestry complies with the GAEC legislation that the land has to be retained in a condition suitable for grazing or crofting.
If I was not for the RHI payment, the demand for woodchip would vanish. It would be interesting to know how much non-renewable energy it takes to harvest woodchip and dry woodchip.
I asked a senior Government official where the research was done to prove that forestry was more efficient at carbon sequestration than growing crops or grass. After some hesitation, his reply was that it is an assumed calculation, and was probably a Confor story dreamed up to attract Government support.
As most of the support for forestry is funded by Europe, if the Government decide to support forestry and not agriculture, and retain the tax free status for the end product, then there will be no future for the next generation.
Andrew McCornick visited land which was supposed to be one of the driest farms in Ayrshire. I believe his comment was “why are they planting this type of land?”. It is now planted and several £100,000 aid paid.
There was also a farm highlighted in the NFU leader magazine which, from the photograph, looked like ploughable grazing land. From memory the grant aid was in the region of £9000 per acre. There is no way that the next generation of farmers can compete for land to farm. 
If we want the next generation then the Government will need to change the tax – that land would qualify for IHT or APR if it was retained in agriculture or sold or passed on to the next generation of farmers.